In his String.Format for Visual FoxPro blog post, Eric Selje presented a program for formatting strings like the String.Format method in .NET. I won't repeat his rationale here; you can read about it yourself. Suffice to say, it saves a lot of typing TRANSFORM() statements and is much easier to read.
I adapted his idea and added support for C# string interpolation, which is more concise and easier to read than String.Format syntax.
Simply add Format.prg to your project and call it as necessary.
You can call Format.prg with either String.Format-like syntax or string interpolation syntax. In both cases, the first parameter is an expression containing placeholders delimited with {} for values that are inserted at runtime. The placeholders can include format strings. Use "\r" in the expression for a carriage return (CHR(13)) and "\n" for a linefeed (CHR(10)). If you want to use "\r", "\n", "{", or "}" as literals, escape them with "\" (for example, "\\r" to include "\r" in the expression without adding a carriage return).
The expression contains numbered placeholders, starting with {0}. Each placeholder is replaced with the appropriate parameter: {0} is replaced with the first parameter following the expression (the second parameter passed to Format.prg), {1} is replaced with the next one, and so on. Here's an example:
lcUser = alltrim(substr(sys(0), at('#', sys(0)) + 1))
lnBalance = 12.3456
wait window Format('The balance for {0} on {1} is {2}', lcUser, datetime(), lnBalance)
This displays something like "The balance for dhenn on 12/16/2023 8:23:53 AM is 12.3456".
The placeholders contain expressions that are evaluated and replaced with the result. Here's an example:
wait window Format('The balance for {lcUser} on {datetime()} is {lnBalance}')
Notice how more concise and easier to read this is, yet it displays the same result as the String.Format example.
The expressions in the placeholders must be visible to Format.prg:
- Variables must be private or public, not local.
- You can't use an expression like This.SomeProperty or Thisform.SomeMethod(). Instead, copy the result of the expression to a variable and use the variable in the placeholder.
You can specify how each parameter should be formatted by adding ":" and a format string after the placeholder number or expression. For example:
wait window Format('The balance for {0} on {1:F} is {2:C2}', lcUser, datetime(), lnBalance)
wait window Format('The balance for {lcUser} on {datetime():F} is {lnBalance:C2}')
"F" for the datetime parameter specifies a full long datetime and C2 for the numeric parameter specifies a currency format with two decimal places. Both statements display something like "The balance for dhenn on December 16, 2023 8:23:53 AM is $12.35".
See the Format string component section of the Composite Formatting article for details on format strings. Note that not all format strings are available: only datetime (with the exception of the O format) and numeric (with the exception of the B, E, G, and R formats) format strings are supported.
Format goes beyond TEXTMERGE: it can format numeric and date values and insert carriage returns and linefeeds easily.
- Added missing LOCAL statements.
- Ignore \r, \n, {, and } in values.
- Initial release.