How do I print to stderr in Python?

I found this to be the only one short, flexible, portable and readable:

import sys

def eprint(*args, **kwargs):
    print(*args, file=sys.stderr, **kwargs)

The optional function eprint saves some repetition. It can be used in the same way as the standard print function:

>>> print("Test")
Test
>>> eprint("Test")
Test
>>> eprint("foo", "bar", "baz", sep="---")
foo---bar---baz

import sys
sys.stderr.write()

Is my choice, just more readable and saying exactly what you intend to do and portable across versions.

Edit: being 'pythonic' is a third thought to me over readability and performance... with these two things in mind, with python 80% of your code will be pythonic. list comprehension being the 'big thing' that isn't used as often (readability).

Python 3:

print("fatal error", file=sys.stderr)

Python 2:

print >> sys.stderr, "fatal error"

Long answer

print >> sys.stderr is gone in Python3. http://docs.python.org/3.0/whatsnew/3.0.html says:

Old: print >> sys.stderr, "fatal error"
New: print("fatal error", file=sys.stderr)

For many of us, it feels somewhat unnatural to relegate the destination to the end of the command. The alternative

sys.stderr.write("fatal error\n")

looks more object oriented, and elegantly goes from the generic to the specific. But note that write is not a 1:1 replacement for print.

For Python 2 my choice is: print >> sys.stderr, 'spam' Because you can simply print lists/dicts etc. without convert it to string. print >> sys.stderr, {'spam': 'spam'} instead of: sys.stderr.write(str({'spam': 'spam'}))