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 .NET).

My basic requirement is a thousand separator format for numbers for now, but something that handles lots of combinations (including dates) would be good.

I realize Microsoft's Ajax library provides a version of String.Format(), but we don't want the entire overhead of that framework.

Answer 1

I did not see the String.format variant:

String.format = function (string) {
    var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1, arguments.length);
    return string.replace(/{(\d+)}/g, function (match, number) {
        return typeof args[number] != "undefined" ? args[number] : match;
    });
};

Answer 2

I didn't see pyformat in the list so I thought I'd throw it in:

console.log(pyformat( 'The {} {} jumped over the {}'
                , ['brown' ,'fox' ,'foobar']
                ))
console.log(pyformat('The {0} {1} jumped over the {1}'
                , ['brown' ,'fox' ,'foobar']
                ))
console.log(pyformat('The {color} {animal} jumped over the {thing}'
                , [] ,{color: 'brown' ,animal: 'fox' ,thing: 'foobaz'}
                ))

Answer 3

Number Formatting in JavaScript

I got to this question page hoping to find how to format numbers in JavaScript, without introducing yet another library. Here's what I've found:

Rounding floating-point numbers

The equivalent of sprintf("%.2f", num) in JavaScript seems to be num.toFixed(2), which formats num to 2 decimal places, with rounding (but see @ars265's comment about Math.round below).

(12.345).toFixed(2); // returns "12.35" (rounding!)
(12.3).toFixed(2); // returns "12.30" (zero padding)

Exponential form

The equivalent of sprintf("%.2e", num) is num.toExponential(2).

(33333).toExponential(2); // "3.33e+4"

Hexadecimal and other bases

To print numbers in base B, try num.toString(B). JavaScript supports automatic conversion to and from bases 2 through 36 (in addition, some browsers have limited support for base64 encoding).

(3735928559).toString(16); // to base 16: "deadbeef"
parseInt("deadbeef", 16); // from base 16: 3735928559

Reference Pages

Quick tutorial on JS number formatting

Mozilla reference page for toFixed() (with links to toPrecision(), toExponential(), toLocaleString(), ...)

Answer 4

I want to share my solution for the 'problem'. I haven't re-invented the wheel but tries to find a solution based on what JavaScript already does. The advantage is, that you get all implicit conversions for free. Setting the prototype property $ of String gives a very nice and compact syntax (see examples below). It is maybe not the most efficient way, but in most cases dealing with output it does not have to be super optimized.

String.form = function(str, arr) {
    var i = -1;
    function callback(exp, p0, p1, p2, p3, p4) {
        if (exp=='%%') return '%';
        if (arr[++i]===undefined) return undefined;
        exp  = p2 ? parseInt(p2.substr(1)) : undefined;
        var base = p3 ? parseInt(p3.substr(1)) : undefined;
        var val;
        switch (p4) {
            case 's': val = arr[i]; break;
            case 'c': val = arr[i][0]; break;
            case 'f': val = parseFloat(arr[i]).toFixed(exp); break;
            case 'p': val = parseFloat(arr[i]).toPrecision(exp); break;
            case 'e': val = parseFloat(arr[i]).toExponential(exp); break;
            case 'x': val = parseInt(arr[i]).toString(base?base:16); break;
            case 'd': val = parseFloat(parseInt(arr[i], base?base:10).toPrecision(exp)).toFixed(0); break;
        }
        val = typeof(val)=='object' ? JSON.stringify(val) : val.toString(base);
        var sz = parseInt(p1); /* padding size */
        var ch = p1 && p1[0]=='0' ? '0' : ' '; /* isnull? */
        while (val.length<sz) val = p0 !== undefined ? val+ch : ch+val; /* isminus? */
       return val;
    }
    var regex = /%(-)?(0?[0-9]+)?([.][0-9]+)?([#][0-9]+)?([scfpexd%])/g;
    return str.replace(regex, callback);
}

String.prototype.$ = function() {
    return String.form(this, Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments));
}

Here are a few examples:

String.format("%s %s", [ "This is a string", 11 ])
console.log("%s %s".$("This is a string", 11))
var arr = [ "12.3", 13.6 ]; console.log("Array: %s".$(arr));
var obj = { test:"test", id:12 }; console.log("Object: %s".$(obj));
console.log("%c", "Test");
console.log("%5d".$(12)); // '   12'
console.log("%05d".$(12)); // '00012'
console.log("%-5d".$(12)); // '12   '
console.log("%5.2d".$(123)); // '  120'
console.log("%5.2f".$(1.1)); // ' 1.10'
console.log("%10.2e".$(1.1)); // '   1.10e+0'
console.log("%5.3p".$(1.12345)); // ' 1.12'
console.log("%5x".$(45054)); // ' affe'
console.log("%20#2x".$("45054")); // '    1010111111111110'
console.log("%6#2d".$("111")); // '     7'
console.log("%6#16d".$("affe")); // ' 45054'

Answer 5

There is "sprintf" for JavaScript which you can find at http://www.webtoolkit.info/javascript-sprintf.html.

Answer 6

For basic formatting:

var template = jQuery.validator.format("{0} is not a valid value");
var result = template("abc");