diff --git a/pylib/cqlshlib/test/test_formatting.py b/pylib/cqlshlib/test/test_formatting.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9801daa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pylib/cqlshlib/test/test_formatting.py
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+# coding=utf-8
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+import os
+import string
+
+from .basecase import BaseTestCase
+from .cassconnect import (get_cassandra_connection, create_keyspace, remove_db, testrun_cqlsh)
+
+
+class TestFormatting(BaseTestCase):
+
+    @classmethod
+    def setUpClass(cls):
+        s = get_cassandra_connection().connect()
+        s.default_timeout = 60.0
+        create_keyspace(s)
+        s.execute('CREATE TABLE t (k int PRIMARY KEY, v text)')
+
+        env = os.environ.copy()
+        env['LC_CTYPE'] = 'UTF-8'
+        cls.default_env = env
+
+    @classmethod
+    def tearDownClass(cls):
+        remove_db()
+
+    def test_multiple_semicolons_in_describe(self):
+        with testrun_cqlsh(tty=True, env=self.default_env) as c:
+            v1 = 'type_name'
+            v2 = 'value_name'
+            _ = c.cmd_and_response(f'CREATE TYPE "{v1}" ( "{v2}" int );')
+            output = c.cmd_and_response('DESC TYPES;;;')
+            self.assertIn(v1, output)
+            output = c.cmd_and_response(f'DESC TYPE "{v1}";;;')
+            self.assertIn(v2, output)
+
+    def test_spaces_in_describe(self):
+        with testrun_cqlsh(tty=True, env=self.default_env) as c:
+            v1 = 'type_name'
+            v2 = 'value_name'
+            _ = c.cmd_and_response(f'CREATE TYPE "{v1}" ( "{v2}" int );')
+
+            def verify_output(prefix_str: str, infix_str: str, suffix_str: str) -> None:
+                output = c.cmd_and_response(f'DESC{prefix_str}TYPES{suffix_str};')
+                self.assertIn(v1, output)
+                output = c.cmd_and_response(f'DESC{prefix_str}TYPE{infix_str}"{v1}"{suffix_str};')
+                self.assertIn(v2, output)
+
+            # cqlsh doesn't work well with whitespace characters other than spaces apparently.
+            spaces = [' ', '  ', '   ']
+            for prefix in spaces:
+                for infix in spaces:
+                    for suffix in [*spaces, '']:
+                        verify_output(prefix, infix, suffix)