String substitution using placeholders

[Sensillium]

Hi,

I've just started to use AutoIT after spending time learning Python & Powershell.

I'm hoping there is a method for variable substitution in strings, without constant concatenation.

For example:

first = "a"

second = "hope"

third = "bar"

foo = "This is %1 test, I %2 it will produce %3" "a", "hope", "bar"

or

foo = "This is %1 test, I %2 it will produce %3" first, second, thrid

would produce:

print foo

This is a test, I hope it will produce bar

or in Python if you prefer:

foo = "This is {0} test, I {1} it will produce {2}".Format("a", "hope", "bar")

or

foo = "This is {0} test, I {1} it will produce {3}".Format(first, second, third)

Currently I'm resorting to concatenation which is much more prone to typos, and tedious to write.

e.g. (using AutoIt syntax)

$foo = "This is " & $first & " test, I " & $second & " it will produce " & $third

is this hope in vain, I've search the internet in general and these forums for:

Substitution

Variable substitution

String substitution

and get roughly the same 26 results for each, none of which are doing what I'm trying (most are regex), whereas searching for 'placehold' gets me 7 results about CD-ROM drives...

Thank you for your assistance.

[Melba23]

Sensillium,

Soemthing like this perhaps?

#include <MsgBoxConstants.au3>

Local $aA[3] =["a", "hope", "bar"]

MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "Concatenation", "This is " & $aA[0] & " test, I " & $aA[1] & " it will produce " & $aA[2])

M23

[Malkey]

Using StringFormat function.

Local $foo = StringFormat("This is %s test, I %s it will produce %s", "a", "hope", "bar")
MsgBox(0, "Test1", $foo)

;or

Local $first = "a"
Local $second = "hope"
Local $third = "bar"
Local $sFoo = StringFormat("This is %s test, I %s it will produce %s", $first, $second, $third)
MsgBox(0, "Test2", $sFoo)

[Sensillium]

Thanks for the suggestion Melba23, but aside from creating an array of the strings, instead of single variable names it doesn't actually change anything.

As you probably noticed the Python line has only 1 pair of " for the entire string, whereas AutoIt has 3 pairs of ". I'm trying to replicate the single pair of " syntax.

Edited August 6, 2014 by Sensillium

[Sensillium]

Perfect Malkey, thank you.

Oddly I have read about StringFormat, but was unable to find a working example that matched my criteria.