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  From: Barney Wrightson <barney.wrightson@dsto.defence.gov.au>
  To  : Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:42:43 +1030

Re: Java tidbit

Andrew Reid wrote:
> In C, there's sprintf. Comes in handy.
> 
> I'm a relative Java newbie. I thought I'd through myself into the
> deep-end and learn by writing an IMAP client. So far, so
> good. However, I've run into a situation where I'd normally use
> sprintf.
> 
> Does Java have any way of doing this without concatenating the
> strings? For example, I don't want to have to do:
> 
> String test = "My name is " + Firstname + " " + Lastname + ".";
> 
> ... as that would be a right pain in the clacker when there are a
> whole bunch of other strings that you want involved.
> 
> I found a package[1] that provides C-style printf, sprintf for Java,
> but it would be strange if there wasn't a Java way of doing the same
> thing. 
> 
> Can one of the Java gurus out there throw me a bone?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>    - andrew
> 
> [1] http://www.braju.com/
> 

Standard java is to do what you have there (as far as I know), although 
if you are doing a lot of separate appends you should probably use a 
StringBuffer for efficiency reasons, as Strings are immutable and so a 
new one is created every time you alter the value. The need for sprintf 
is lessened because there is always a toString() method for all Objects. 
A sprintf clone would need to have a list of Objects passed to it or 
something to get around the lack of variable numbers of parameters in java.

Barney

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