JavaScript equivalent to printf/String.Format

Question

I\'m looking for a good JavaScript equivalent of the C/PHP printf() or for C#/Java programmers, String.Format() (IFormatProvider for .

Answer 1

Here's a minimal implementation of sprintf in JavaScript: it only does "%s" and "%d", but I have left space for it to be extended. It is useless to the OP, but other people who stumble across this thread coming from Google might benefit from it.

function sprintf() {
    var args = arguments,
    string = args[0],
    i = 1;
    return string.replace(/%((%)|s|d)/g, function (m) {
        // m is the matched format, e.g. %s, %d
        var val = null;
        if (m[2]) {
            val = m[2];
        } else {
            val = args[i];
            // A switch statement so that the formatter can be extended. Default is %s
            switch (m) {
                case '%d':
                    val = parseFloat(val);
                    if (isNaN(val)) {
                        val = 0;
                    }
                    break;
            }
            i++;
        }
        return val;
    });
}

Example:

alert(sprintf('Latitude: %s, Longitude: %s, Count: %d', 41.847, -87.661, 'two'));
// Expected output: Latitude: 41.847, Longitude: -87.661, Count: 0

In contrast with similar solutions in previous replies, this one does all substitutions in one go, so it will not replace parts of previously replaced values.