Question : How can I add leading and following zero's to a floating point number?

I'm trying to display a string in the format 000.000 which will represent a calculated number
in my program. The calculated numbers will not always have 3 digits on each side of the decimal place.
for instance here are a couple of example numbers

1.22
22.34

So what I need to do is make a string from the number but the string needs to have left and right padding
of zeros, so the numbers above would be
001.220
022.340

I was trying to copy the numberString into the defaultString by position listed below, but
apparently Strings are immutable and I can't insert a substring. I don't know if there is a way
to add the padding to the number first before I make it a string or a way to do it as a string.
Either way I'm a little stumped since I've only been using Python a few weeks.


numberString = str(1.22)
decimalPosition = numberString.find('.')
length = len(numberString)
defaultString = "000.000"
startPosition = length - 1 - decimalPosition  #position in default string to start

        for s in range(0,decimalPosition,1):
            defaultString[startPosition] = numberString[s]
            startPosition = startPostion + 1

        for s in range(decimalPosition+1,length,1):
            defaultString[startPosition] = numberString[s]
            startPosition = startPostion + 1

Answer : How can I add leading and following zero's to a floating point number?

Try this:

"%07.3f" % number

For example:

"%07.3f" % 1.0 = '001.000'