Two standard libraries?

[Regan Heath]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Roberto Mariottini wrote:
>> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>> [...]
>>> Now look at a language like Japanese, where you'd probably put the 
>>> database name first; it'd be arranged something like "in personnel 
>>> database {}, employee {} does not exist".  Now you have to change the 
>>> order of the arguments after the format string.  But with indexing, 
>>> you can say {0} always is the employee name, and {1} always is the 
>>> database name, so that you can format them in the correct order for 
>>> other languages, without having to change the actual format code.  
>>> Just change the format string.
>>
>> May I suggest to use an identifier instead of a numeric index?
>> I have several years of experience with multi-language code and I can 
>> say that for a translator is better.
>>
>> For example:
>>
>> "{0} has {1} pieces in {2}"
>>
>> Could be:
>>
>> "{supplier} has {stock} pieces in {city}"
>>
>> and make the translator happy.
> 
> How would such identifiers be matched up with variadic arguments?

hmm.. Could it match the variable names with the inserts?

string supplier = "Bob";
string city = "Someplace far far away";
int stock = 5;

format("{supplier} has {stock} pieces in {city}",
   supplier, city, stock);

Maybe with some more reflection features it could be possible.

Regan