How to interpolate variables in strings in JavaScript, without concatenation?

Question

I know in PHP we can do something like this:

$hello = \"foo\";
$my_string = \"I pity the $hello\";

Output: \"I pity the foo\"<

Answer 1

You can use this javascript function to do this sort of templating. No need to include an entire library.

function createStringFromTemplate(template, variables) {
    return template.replace(new RegExp("\{([^\{]+)\}", "g"), function(_unused, varName){
        return variables[varName];
    });
}

createStringFromTemplate(
    "I would like to receive email updates from {list_name} {var1} {var2} {var3}.",
    {
        list_name : "this store",
        var1      : "FOO",
        var2      : "BAR",
        var3      : "BAZ"
    }
);

Output: "I would like to receive email updates from this store FOO BAR BAZ."

Using a function as an argument to the String.replace() function was part of the ECMAScript v3 spec. See this SO answer for more details.