Interpolation to any string

General Usage
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1

Hi, is it possible to create a universal function to interpolation to any string?

maybe there is a function to pass values to the template one at time?

teplate = "\$str1 \$str2"

function get_text_by_template(teplate; x...)
     #?
     return text  # teplate + x
end


get_text_by_template(teplate; str1 = "Hellow!", str2 = "Need help!")  # -> "Hellow! Need help!"
2

You might want to try some real templating system like https://github.com/jverzani/Mustache.jl.

2 Likes
3

There is also Formatting.jl if you are not married to the specific format.

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4

Possibly Printf too:

using Printf
get_text_by_template(template, x, y) = Printf.format(template, x, y)
template =  Printf.Format("%s %s")
str1 = "Hello!"
str2 = "Need help!"
get_text_by_template(template, str1, str2) 
# result:
"Hello! Need help!"
5

I wonder why Printf.format is neither documented nor exported.

There could easily be

function printf(io::IO, fmt, args...)
    format(io, fmt, args...)
end

function printf(T::Type, fmt, args...)
    io = StringBuffer()
    printf(io, fmt, args...)
    T(take!(io))
end

printf(io::IO, fmt::AbstractString, args...) = printf(io, Format(fmt), args...)
printf(fmt, args...) = printf(stdout, fmt, args...)

and this problem would just be gone.

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6

Partly because it’s type unstable and hence relatively slow, I think — in contrast, if you use @printf or @sprintf then the Format object is created at lowering time so it is known to the compiler. So we want to steer people towards the macro interface if possible.

7

And how often do you printf in a performance critical context? I feel like this could be solved by a mention in the “Performance tips” section, together with @code_warntype. Are there no other sub-optimal convenience functions in the language?

Maybe a good midway would be to simplify and document the function, including pointing out the better way to do it, and not exporting it. That way people who run into this can opt in to that loss of performance with using Printf: printf.

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