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Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2022 21:57:49 -0400
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To: Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC][Under discussion] Arbitrary string interpolation
From: mike@newclarity.net (MKS Archive)

> On Mar 26, 2022, at 6:15 PM, Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com> =
wrote:
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> On 25/03/2022 14:38, Arnaud Le Blanc wrote:
>> I find that sprintf() is easier to read in most cases. One reason for =
this is
>> that the text is separated from the code.
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> Funnily enough, I find sprintf() *harder* to read for the same reason =
- particularly once there are more than two or three parameters, and =
more than a bit of punctuation between them.
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> A large part of that is because the placeholders are positional rather =
than named, so you have to keep track of which is which; but by the time =
you've got named placeholders, you might as well have variable =
interpolation.
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> As a silly example, I prefer this:
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> $sentence =3D "The {$adjectives[0]} {$adjectives[1]} {$nouns[0]} =
jumped over the {$adjectives[2]} {$nouns[1]}";
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> To this:
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> $sentence =3D sprintf(
>    'The %s %s %s jumped over the %s %s',
>    $adjectives[0],
>    $adjectives[1],
>    $nouns[0],
>    $adjectives[2],
>    $nouns[1]
> );
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> I think that's partly a matter of taste, though, because I've =
definitely seen people happily using both styles. And there are =
certainly situations (like translation strings) where placeholders of =
some sort work better than straight interpolation.

Choice of sprintf() vs string interpolation *can* be more than a matter =
of taste, and this from someone who once greater preferred the latter.

There are (at least) two use-cases I am familiar with where using =
printf() and sprintf() with placeholders have benefits over string =
interpolation.

1.) Internationalization of human-readable strings can be more easily =
facilitated when the literal text is kept distinct from the interpolated =
values.

2.) Reduced memory allocation and string manipulation when strings are =
used for logging that may be discarded when logging levels are set to =
less than "log everything."=20

#fwiw

> That's why I thought it was interesting to see what other languages =
have done. While PHP and Ruby have obvious links back to Perl, many =
languages which didn't start off with string interpolation have added it =
in later versions, e.g. C#, Scala, JavaScript, Python. Clearly there =
were sufficient voices in favour in each of those communities to add it; =
and in each case, they added *expression* interpolation, not just the =
*variable* interpolation supported by Perl and PHP.
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> I won't be too upset if this feature doesn't get added, but I do think =
it would be a nice addition.
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> Regards,
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> --=20
> Rowan Tommins
> [IMSoP]
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> --=20
> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
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