Improvement of format string. Re: Suggestion for a D project/std module: templated format

[Don Clugston]

renoX wrote:
> Miles Wrote:
> 
>> Derek Parnell wrote:
>>> For what its worth, I tend to just use '%s' in writefln() calls, and almost
>>> never use any of the other format codes, regardless of the data type being
>>> supplied in the arguments.
> 
> Yes, %s and the like are useless except when you need a special format like %08d.
> 
> In Ruby, they provide an escape syntax 'puts "test #{variable}"' without format for the default embedding.
> 
> IMHO in D we could use a similar syntax: writef("text %{variable}"); and writef("test %08d{variable2}"); the %{} embedded in the strings helps a lot readability I think.


IMHO, to be really useful, it would need to be possible to embed 
expressions in the string (not just variable names). This is 
tantalizingly close to being possible with string mixins.