With printf() and sprintf() functions, escape character is not backslash '\' but rather '%'.
Ie. to print '%' character you need to escape it with itself:
<?php
printf('%%%s%%', 'koko'); #output: '%koko%'
?>
(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)
sprintf — Return a formatted string
Returns a string produced according to the formatting string
format
.
format
Șirul de formatare este compus din zero sau mai multe directive: caractere
obișnuite (în afară de %
), care sunt copiate direct
în rezultat și specificatori de conversie, fiecare
având parametrul său.
Un specificator de conversie e compus după următorul prototip:
%[argnum$][flags][width][.precision]specifier
.
Un întreg urmat de senmul dolar $
,
pentru a specifica ce argument de număr trebuie tratat în conversie.
Flag | Descriere |
---|---|
- |
Alinierea spre stânga în limitele lungimii câmpului; Implicit se efectuează alinierea spre dreapta |
+ |
Prefixează numerele pozitive cu semnul plus
+ ; implicit doar numerele negative sunt prefixate cu
semnul minus.
|
(spațiu) |
Completează rezultatul cu spații. Acesta este comportamentul implicit. |
0 |
Completează numerele cu zerouri în stânga.
Cu specificatorii s se poate de completat cu zerouri
și în dreapta.
|
' (char) |
Completează rezultatul cu caracterul (char). |
Un număr întreg ce indică câte caractere (minimum) trebuie să aibă rezultatul conversiei.
Un punct .
, urmat de un număr întreg, însemnătatea căruia
depinde de specificator:
e
, E
,
f
și F
: acesta este numărul de cifre
ce vor fi tipărite după punctul zecimal (implicit acesta este 6).
g
și G
:
acesta este numărul maxim de cifre semnificative ce va fi tipărit.
s
: acesta funcționează ca punct
de oprire, stabilind limita maximă a numărului de caractere din șir.
Notă: Dacă punctul este specificat fără o valoare explicită pentru precizie, se presupune că aceasta este 0.
Notă: Încercarea de a folosi un specificator de poziție mai mare decât
PHP_INT_MAX
va genera avertizări.
Specifier | Descriere |
---|---|
% |
Specifică caracterul procent. Nu este necesar vre-un argument. |
b |
Argumentul este tratat ca un întreg și prezentat ca număr binar. |
c |
Argumentul este tratat ca un întreg și prezentat ca caracter cu acest cod ASCII. |
d |
Argumentul este tratat ca un întreg și prezentat ca număr zecimal (cu semn). |
e |
Argumentul este tratat ca număr în notație exponențială (de ex. 1.2e+2). Specificatorul de precizie semnifică numărul de cifre după virgulă începând cu PHP 5.2.1. În versiuni anterioare el specifica numărul de cifre semnificative (cu una mai puțin). |
E |
La fel ca și specificatorul e , dar folosește
caracterul majuscul (de ex. 1.2E+2).
|
f |
Argumentul este tratat ca număr cu virgulă și prezentat ca atare (în dependență de setările de localizare). |
F |
Argumentul este tratat ca număr cu virgulă și prezentat ca atare (fără a se ține cont de setările de localizare). Disponibil începând cu PHP 5.0.3. |
g |
Format general. Fie că P este egal cu precizia, dacă nu este zero, 6 dacă precizia este omisă, sau 1 dacă precizia este zero. Atunci dacă o conversie cu stilul E ar avea un exponent X: Dacă P > X ≥ −4, atunci conversia este de stilul f și precizia P − (X + 1). În caz contrar, conversia este de stilul e și precizia P − 1. |
G |
La fel ca și specificatorul g , dar utilizează
E și f .
|
o |
Argumentul este tratat ca întreg și prezentat ca număr octal. |
s |
Argumentul este tratat și prezentat ca șir de caractere. |
u |
Argumentul este tratat ca întreg și prezentat ca număr zecimal fără semn. |
x |
Argumentul este tratat ca întreg și prezentat ca număr hexazecimal (cu caractere minuscule). |
X |
Argumentul este tratat ca întreg și prezentat ca număr hexazecimal (cu caractere majuscule). |
Specificatorul de tip c
ignoră completarea cu spații și lungimea
Încercarea de a folosi o combinație din specificatori de șiruri de caractere și lungime cu seturi de caractere ce necesită mai mult de un octet per caracter poate da rezultate imprevizibile
Variabilele vor fi aduse la un tip potrivit pentru specificatorul:
Tipul | Specificatorii |
---|---|
string |
s |
integer |
d ,
u ,
c ,
o ,
x ,
X ,
b
|
double |
g ,
G ,
e ,
E ,
f ,
F
|
values
Returns a string produced according to the formatting string
format
.
Versiune | Descriere |
---|---|
8.0.0 |
This function no longer returns false on failure.
|
Example #1 Argument swapping
The format string supports argument numbering/swapping.
<?php
$num = 5;
$location = 'tree';
$format = 'There are %d monkeys in the %s';
echo sprintf($format, $num, $location);
?>
Exemplul de mai sus va afișa:
There are 5 monkeys in the tree
However imagine we are creating a format string in a separate file, commonly because we would like to internationalize it and we rewrite it as:
<?php
$format = 'The %s contains %d monkeys';
echo sprintf($format, $num, $location);
?>
We now have a problem. The order of the placeholders in the format string does not match the order of the arguments in the code. We would like to leave the code as is and simply indicate in the format string which arguments the placeholders refer to. We would write the format string like this instead:
<?php
$format = 'The %2$s contains %1$d monkeys';
echo sprintf($format, $num, $location);
?>
An added benefit is that placeholders can be repeated without adding more arguments in the code.
<?php
$format = 'The %2$s contains %1$d monkeys.
That\'s a nice %2$s full of %1$d monkeys.';
echo sprintf($format, $num, $location);
?>
When using argument swapping, the n$
position specifier must come immediately
after the percent sign (%
), before any other
specifiers, as shown below.
Example #2 Specifying padding character
<?php
echo sprintf("%'.9d\n", 123);
echo sprintf("%'.09d\n", 123);
?>
Exemplul de mai sus va afișa:
......123 000000123
Example #3 Position specifier with other specifiers
<?php
$format = 'The %2$s contains %1$04d monkeys';
echo sprintf($format, $num, $location);
?>
Exemplul de mai sus va afișa:
The tree contains 0005 monkeys
Example #4 sprintf(): zero-padded integers
<?php
$isodate = sprintf("%04d-%02d-%02d", $year, $month, $day);
?>
Example #5 sprintf(): formatting currency
<?php
$money1 = 68.75;
$money2 = 54.35;
$money = $money1 + $money2;
echo $money;
echo "\n";
$formatted = sprintf("%01.2f", $money);
echo $formatted;
?>
Exemplul de mai sus va afișa:
123.1 123.10
Example #6 sprintf(): scientific notation
<?php
$number = 362525200;
echo sprintf("%.3e", $number);
?>
Exemplul de mai sus va afișa:
3.625e+8
With printf() and sprintf() functions, escape character is not backslash '\' but rather '%'.
Ie. to print '%' character you need to escape it with itself:
<?php
printf('%%%s%%', 'koko'); #output: '%koko%'
?>
1. A plus sign ('+') means put a '+' before positive numbers while a minus sign ('-') means left justify. The documentation incorrectly states that they are interchangeable. They produce unique results that can be combined:
<?php
echo sprintf ("|%+4d|%+4d|\n", 1, -1);
echo sprintf ("|%-4d|%-4d|\n", 1, -1);
echo sprintf ("|%+-4d|%+-4d|\n", 1, -1);
?>
outputs:
| +1| -1|
|1 |-1 |
|+1 |-1 |
2. Padding with a '0' is different than padding with other characters. Zeros will only be added at the front of a number, after any sign. Other characters will be added before the sign, or after the number:
<?php
echo sprintf ("|%04d|\n", -2);
echo sprintf ("|%':4d|\n", -2);
echo sprintf ("|%-':4d|\n", -2);
// Specifying both "-" and "0" creates a conflict with unexpected results:
echo sprintf ("|%-04d|\n", -2);
// Padding with other digits behaves like other non-zero characters:
echo sprintf ("|%-'14d|\n", -2);
echo sprintf ("|%-'04d|\n", -2);
?>
outputs:
|-002|
|::-2|
|-2::|
|-2 |
|-211|
|-2 |
Here is how to print a floating point number with 16 significant digits regardless of magnitude:
<?php
$result = sprintf(sprintf('%%.%dF', max(15 - floor(log10($value)), 0)), $value);
?>
This works more reliably than doing something like sprintf('%.15F', $value) as the latter may cut off significant digits for very small numbers, or prints bogus digits (meaning extra digits beyond what can reliably be represented in a floating point number) for very large numbers.
There are already some comments on using sprintf to force leading leading zeros but the examples only include integers. I needed leading zeros on floating point numbers and was surprised that it didn't work as expected.
Example:
<?php
sprintf('%02d', 1);
?>
This will result in 01. However, trying the same for a float with precision doesn't work:
<?php
sprintf('%02.2f', 1);
?>
Yields 1.00.
This threw me a little off. To get the desired result, one needs to add the precision (2) and the length of the decimal seperator "." (1). So the correct pattern would be
<?php
sprintf('%05.2f', 1);
?>
Output: 01.00
Please see http://stackoverflow.com/a/28739819/413531 for a more detailed explanation.
Here's a clean, working version of functions to allow using named arguments instead of numeric ones. ex: instead of sprintf('%1$s', 'Joe');, we can use sprintf('%name$s', array('name' => 'Joe'));. I've provided 2 different versions: the first uses the php-like syntax (ex: %name$s), while the second uses the python syntax (ex: %(name)s).
<?php
/**
* version of sprintf for cases where named arguments are desired (php syntax)
*
* with sprintf: sprintf('second: %2$s ; first: %1$s', '1st', '2nd');
*
* with sprintfn: sprintfn('second: %second$s ; first: %first$s', array(
* 'first' => '1st',
* 'second'=> '2nd'
* ));
*
* @param string $format sprintf format string, with any number of named arguments
* @param array $args array of [ 'arg_name' => 'arg value', ... ] replacements to be made
* @return string|false result of sprintf call, or bool false on error
*/
function sprintfn ($format, array $args = array()) {
// map of argument names to their corresponding sprintf numeric argument value
$arg_nums = array_slice(array_flip(array_keys(array(0 => 0) + $args)), 1);
// find the next named argument. each search starts at the end of the previous replacement.
for ($pos = 0; preg_match('/(?<=%)([a-zA-Z_]\w*)(?=\$)/', $format, $match, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, $pos);) {
$arg_pos = $match[0][1];
$arg_len = strlen($match[0][0]);
$arg_key = $match[1][0];
// programmer did not supply a value for the named argument found in the format string
if (! array_key_exists($arg_key, $arg_nums)) {
user_error("sprintfn(): Missing argument '${arg_key}'", E_USER_WARNING);
return false;
}
// replace the named argument with the corresponding numeric one
$format = substr_replace($format, $replace = $arg_nums[$arg_key], $arg_pos, $arg_len);
$pos = $arg_pos + strlen($replace); // skip to end of replacement for next iteration
}
return vsprintf($format, array_values($args));
}
/**
* version of sprintf for cases where named arguments are desired (python syntax)
*
* with sprintf: sprintf('second: %2$s ; first: %1$s', '1st', '2nd');
*
* with sprintfn: sprintfn('second: %(second)s ; first: %(first)s', array(
* 'first' => '1st',
* 'second'=> '2nd'
* ));
*
* @param string $format sprintf format string, with any number of named arguments
* @param array $args array of [ 'arg_name' => 'arg value', ... ] replacements to be made
* @return string|false result of sprintf call, or bool false on error
*/
function sprintfn ($format, array $args = array()) {
// map of argument names to their corresponding sprintf numeric argument value
$arg_nums = array_slice(array_flip(array_keys(array(0 => 0) + $args)), 1);
// find the next named argument. each search starts at the end of the previous replacement.
for ($pos = 0; preg_match('/(?<=%)\(([a-zA-Z_]\w*)\)/', $format, $match, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, $pos);) {
$arg_pos = $match[0][1];
$arg_len = strlen($match[0][0]);
$arg_key = $match[1][0];
// programmer did not supply a value for the named argument found in the format string
if (! array_key_exists($arg_key, $arg_nums)) {
user_error("sprintfn(): Missing argument '${arg_key}'", E_USER_WARNING);
return false;
}
// replace the named argument with the corresponding numeric one
$format = substr_replace($format, $replace = $arg_nums[$arg_key] . '$', $arg_pos, $arg_len);
$pos = $arg_pos + strlen($replace); // skip to end of replacement for next iteration
}
return vsprintf($format, array_values($args));
}
?>
Be cafeful while trying to refactor longer strings with repeated placeholders like
sprintf("Hi %s. Your name is %s", $name, $name);
to use argument numbering:
sprintf("Hi %1$s. Your name is %1$s", $name);
This will nuke you at **runtime**, because of `$s` thing being handled as variable. If you got no $s for substitution, notice will be thrown.
The solution is to use single quotes to prevent variable substitution in string:
sprintf('Hi %1$s. Your name is %1$s', $name);
If you need variable substitution, then you'd need to split your string to keep it in single quotes:
sprintf("Hi " . '%1$s' . ". Your {$variable} is " . '%1$s', $name);
I had a nightmare trying to find the two's complement of a 32 bit number.
I got this from http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum88/13334.htm (credit where credit is due... =P )
Quote: ...find out the 2's complement of any number, which is -(pow(2, n) - N) where n is the number of bits and N is the number for which to find out its 2's complement.
This worked magic for me... previously I was trying to use
sprintf ("%b",$32BitDecimal);
But it always returned 10000000000000000000000 when the $32BitDecimal value got above 2,000,000,000.
This -(pow(2, n) - N)
Worked remarkably well and was very accurate.
Hope this helps someone fighting with two's complement in PHP.
Just to elaborate on downright's point about different meanings for %f, it appears the behavior changed significantly as of 4.3.7, rather than just being different on different platforms. Previously, the width specifier gave the number of characters allowed BEFORE the decimal. Now, the width specifier gives the TOTAL number of characters. (This is in line with the semantics of printf() in other languages.) See bugs #28633 and #29286 for more details.
The old "monkey" example which helped me a lot has sadly disappeared.
I'll Re-post it in comment as a memory.
<?php
$n = 43951789;
$u = -43951789;
$c = 65; // ASCII 65 is 'A'
// notice the double %%, this prints a literal '%' character
printf("%%b = '%b'\n", $n); // binary representation
printf("%%c = '%c'\n", $c); // print the ascii character, same as chr() function
printf("%%d = '%d'\n", $n); // standard integer representation
printf("%%e = '%e'\n", $n); // scientific notation
printf("%%u = '%u'\n", $n); // unsigned integer representation of a positive integer
printf("%%u = '%u'\n", $u); // unsigned integer representation of a negative integer
printf("%%f = '%f'\n", $n); // floating point representation
printf("%%o = '%o'\n", $n); // octal representation
printf("%%s = '%s'\n", $n); // string representation
printf("%%x = '%x'\n", $n); // hexadecimal representation (lower-case)
printf("%%X = '%X'\n", $n); // hexadecimal representation (upper-case)
printf("%%+d = '%+d'\n", $n); // sign specifier on a positive integer
printf("%%+d = '%+d'\n", $u); // sign specifier on a negative integer
/*
%b = '10100111101010011010101101'
%c = 'A'
%d = '43951789'
%e = '4.395179e+7'
%u = '43951789'
%u = '18446744073665599827'
%f = '43951789.000000'
%o = '247523255'
%s = '43951789'
%x = '29ea6ad'
%X = '29EA6AD'
%+d = '+43951789'
%+d = '-43951789'
*/
$s = 'monkey';
$t = 'many monkeys';
printf("[%s]\n", $s); // standard string output
printf("[%10s]\n", $s); // right-justification with spaces
printf("[%-10s]\n", $s); // left-justification with spaces
printf("[%010s]\n", $s); // zero-padding works on strings too
printf("[%'#10s]\n", $s); // use the custom padding character '#'
printf("[%10.10s]\n", $t); // left-justification but with a cutoff of 10 characters
/*
[monkey]
[ monkey]
[monkey ]
[0000monkey]
[####monkey]
[many monke]
*/
?>
A more complete and working version of mb_sprintf and mb_vsprintf. It should work with any "ASCII preserving" encoding such as UTF-8 and all the ISO-8859 charsets. It handles sign, padding, alignment, width and precision. Argument swapping is not handled.
<?php
if (!function_exists('mb_sprintf')) {
function mb_sprintf($format) {
$argv = func_get_args() ;
array_shift($argv) ;
return mb_vsprintf($format, $argv) ;
}
}
if (!function_exists('mb_vsprintf')) {
/**
* Works with all encodings in format and arguments.
* Supported: Sign, padding, alignment, width and precision.
* Not supported: Argument swapping.
*/
function mb_vsprintf($format, $argv, $encoding=null) {
if (is_null($encoding))
$encoding = mb_internal_encoding();
// Use UTF-8 in the format so we can use the u flag in preg_split
$format = mb_convert_encoding($format, 'UTF-8', $encoding);
$newformat = ""; // build a new format in UTF-8
$newargv = array(); // unhandled args in unchanged encoding
while ($format !== "") {
// Split the format in two parts: $pre and $post by the first %-directive
// We get also the matched groups
list ($pre, $sign, $filler, $align, $size, $precision, $type, $post) =
preg_split("!\%(\+?)('.|[0 ]|)(-?)([1-9][0-9]*|)(\.[1-9][0-9]*|)([%a-zA-Z])!u",
$format, 2, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE) ;
$newformat .= mb_convert_encoding($pre, $encoding, 'UTF-8');
if ($type == '') {
// didn't match. do nothing. this is the last iteration.
}
elseif ($type == '%') {
// an escaped %
$newformat .= '%%';
}
elseif ($type == 's') {
$arg = array_shift($argv);
$arg = mb_convert_encoding($arg, 'UTF-8', $encoding);
$padding_pre = '';
$padding_post = '';
// truncate $arg
if ($precision !== '') {
$precision = intval(substr($precision,1));
if ($precision > 0 && mb_strlen($arg,$encoding) > $precision)
$arg = mb_substr($precision,0,$precision,$encoding);
}
// define padding
if ($size > 0) {
$arglen = mb_strlen($arg, $encoding);
if ($arglen < $size) {
if($filler==='')
$filler = ' ';
if ($align == '-')
$padding_post = str_repeat($filler, $size - $arglen);
else
$padding_pre = str_repeat($filler, $size - $arglen);
}
}
// escape % and pass it forward
$newformat .= $padding_pre . str_replace('%', '%%', $arg) . $padding_post;
}
else {
// another type, pass forward
$newformat .= "%$sign$filler$align$size$precision$type";
$newargv[] = array_shift($argv);
}
$format = strval($post);
}
// Convert new format back from UTF-8 to the original encoding
$newformat = mb_convert_encoding($newformat, $encoding, 'UTF-8');
return vsprintf($newformat, $newargv);
}
}
?>
If you use the default padding specifier (a space) and then print it to HTML, you will notice that HTML does not display the multiple spaces correctly. This is because any sequence of white-space is treated as a single space.
To overcome this, I wrote a simple function that replaces all the spaces in the string returned by sprintf() with the character entity reference " " to achieve non-breaking space in strings returned by sprintf()
<?php
//Here is the function:
function sprintf_nbsp() {
$args = func_get_args();
return str_replace(' ', ' ', vsprintf(array_shift($args), array_values($args)));
}
//Usage (exactly like sprintf):
$format = 'The %d monkeys are attacking the [%10s]!';
$str = sprintf_nbsp($format, 15, 'zoo');
echo $str;
?>
The above example will output:
The 15 monkeys are attacking the [ zoo]!
<?php
//The variation that prints the string instead of returning it:
function printf_nbsp() {
$args = func_get_args();
echo str_replace(' ', ' ', vsprintf(array_shift($args), array_values($args)));
}
?>
To jrust at rustyparts.com, note that if you're using a double-quoted string and *don't* escape the dollar sign with a backslash, $s and $d will be interpreted as variable references. The backslash isn't part of the format specifier itself but you do need to include it when you write the format string (unless you use single quotes).
If you want to convert a decimal (integer) number into constant length binary number in lets say 9 bits, use this:
$binary = sprintf('%08b', $number );
for example:
<?php
$bin = sprintf('%08b',511 );
echo $bin."\n";
?>
would output 111111111
And 2 would output 00000010
I know the leading zeros are useful to me, perhaps they are to someone else too.
Just a reminder for beginners : example 6 'printf("[%10s]\n", $s);' only works (that is, shows out the spaces) if you put the html '<pre></pre>' tags ( head-scraping time saver ;-).
Using argument swapping in sprintf() with gettext: Let's say you've written the following script:
<?php
$var = sprintf(gettext("The %2\$s contains %1\$d monkeys"), 2, "cage");
?>
Now you run xgettext in order to generate a .po file. The .po file will then look like this:
#: file.php:9
#, ycp-format
msgid "The %2\\$s contains %1\\$d monkeys"
msgstr ""
Notice how an extra backslash has been added by xgettext.
Once you've translated the string, you must remove all backslashes from the ID string as well as the translation, so the po file will look like this:
#: file.php:9
#, ycp-format
msgid "The %2$s contains %1$d monkeys"
msgstr "Der er %1$d aber i %2$s"
Now run msgfmt to generate the .mo file, restart Apache to remove the gettext cache if necessary, and you're off.
If you use argument numbering, then format specifications with the same number get the same argument; this can save repeating the argument in the function call.
<?php
$pattern = '%1$s %1$\'#10s %1$s!';
printf($pattern, "badgers");
?>
$format = 'There are %1$d monkeys in the %s and %s ';
printf($format, 100, 'Chennai', 'Bangalore');
Expecting to output
"There are 100 monkeys in the Chennai and bangalore"
But, this will output
"There are 100 monkeys in the 100 and Chennai"
Because, the second and Third specifiers takes 1rst and 2nd arguments. Because it is not assigned with any arguments.
And continuing on the same theme of a key-based sprintf...
I'm roughly (I can see a couple cases where it comes out wierd) copying the syntax of Python's string formatting with a dictionary. The improvement over the several past attempts is that this one still respects all of the formating options, as you can see in my example.
And the error handling is really crappy (just an echo). I just threw this together so do with it what you will. =]
<?php
function sprintf_array($string, $array)
{
$keys = array_keys($array);
$keysmap = array_flip($keys);
$values = array_values($array);
while (preg_match('/%\(([a-zA-Z0-9_ -]+)\)/', $string, $m))
{
if (!isset($keysmap[$m[1]]))
{
echo "No key $m[1]\n";
return false;
}
$string = str_replace($m[0], '%' . ($keysmap[$m[1]] + 1) . '$', $string);
}
array_unshift($values, $string);
var_dump($values);
return call_user_func_array('sprintf', $values);
}
echo sprintf_array('4 digit padded number: %(num)04d ', array('num' => 42));
?>
Cheers!
Encoding and decoding IP adress to format: 1A2B3C4D (mysql column: char(8) )
<?php
function encode_ip($dotquad_ip)
{
$ip_sep = explode('.', $dotquad_ip);
return sprintf('%02x%02x%02x%02x', $ip_sep[0], $ip_sep[1], $ip_sep[2], $ip_sep[3]);
}
function decode_ip($int_ip)
{
$hexipbang = explode('.', chunk_split($int_ip, 2, '.'));
return hexdec($hexipbang[0]). '.' . hexdec($hexipbang[1]) . '.' . hexdec($hexipbang[2]) . '.' . hexdec($hexipbang[3]);
}
?>
I couldn't find what should be a WARNING in the documentation above, that if you have more specifiers than variables to match them sprintf returns NOTHING. This fact, IMHO, should also be noted under return values.
Note that when using the argument swapping, you MUST number every argument, otherwise sprintf gets confused. This only happens if you use number arguments first, then switch to a non-numbered, and then back to a numbered one.
<?php
$sql = sprintf( "select * from %1\$s left join %2\$s on( %1\$s.id = %2\$s.midpoint ) where %1\$s.name like '%%%s%%' and %2\$s.tagname is not null", "table1", "table2", "bob" );
// Wont work:
// Sprintf will complain about not enough arguments.
$sql = sprintf( "select * from %1\$s left join %2\$s on( %1\$s.id = %2\$s.midpoint ) where %1\$s.name like '%%%3\$s%%' and %2\$s.tagname is not null", "table1", "table2", "bob" );
// Will work: note the %3\$s
?>
Note that when using a sign specifier, the number zero is considered positive and a "+" sign will be prepended to it.
<?php
printf('%+d', 0); // +0
?>
Just wanted to add that to get the remaining text from the string, you need to add the following as a variable in your scanf
%[ -~]
Example:
sscanf($sql, "[%d,%d]%[ -~]", $sheet_id, $column, $remaining_sql);
Here is an example how alignment, padding and precision specifier can be used to print formatted list of items:
<?php
$out = "The Books\n";
$books = array("Book 1", "Book 2", "Book 3");
$pages = array("123 pages ", "234 pages", "345 pages");
for ($i = 0; $i < count($books); $i++) {
$out .= sprintf("%'.-20s%'.7.4s\n", $books[$i], $pages[$i]);
}
echo $out;
// Outputs:
//
// The Books
// Book 1.................123
// Book 2.................234
// Book 3.................345
?>
Be careful if you use the %f modifier to round decimal numbers as it (starting from 4.3.10) will no longer produce a float number if you set certain locales, so you can't accumulate the result. For example:
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'es_ES');
echo(sprintf("%.2f", 13.332) + sprintf("%.2f", 14.446))
gives 27 instead of 27.78, so use %F instead.
In the examples, is being shown printf, but it should say sprintf, which is the function being explained... just a simple edition mistake.
php printf and sprintf not seems to support star "*" formatting.
here is an example:
printf("%*d\n",3,5);
this will print just "d" instead of "<two spaces>5"
In the last example of Example#6, there is an error regarding the output.
printf("[%10.10s]\n", $t); // left-justification but with a cutoff of 10 characters
This outputs right-justified.
In order to output left-justified:
printf("[%-10.10s]\n", $t);
To add to other notes below about floating point problems, I noted that %f and %F will apparently output a maximum precision of 6 as a default so you have to specify 1.15f (eg) if you need more.
In my case, the input (from MySQL) was a string with 15 digits of precision that was displayed with 6. Likely what happens is that the rounding occurs in the conversion to a float before it is displayed. Displaying it as 1.15f (or in my case, %s) shows the correct number.
If the format string is enclosed in double-quotes (""), you need to escape the dollar sign after argnum with a backslash character (\), like this %1\$s, so that the PHP doesn't try to interpret them as variable. Using a backslash like this is called an escape sequence.
<?php
// Sample string
$number = 499;
$format = "The number without decimal points: %1\$d, and the number with two decimal points: %1\$.2f";
// Formatting and print the string
printf($format, $number);
?>
An error in my last example:
$b = sprintf("%30.s", $a);
will only add enough spaces before $a to pad the spaces + strlen($a) to 30 places.
My method of centering fixed text in a 72 character width space is:
$a = "Some string here";
$lwidth = 36; // 72/2
$b = sprintf("%".($lwidth + round(strlen($a)/2)).".s", $a);
There is a minor issue in a code of mb_vsprintf function from viktor at textalk dot com.
In "truncate $arg" section the following line:
$arg = mb_substr($precision,0,$precision,$encoding);
needs to be replaced with:
$arg = mb_substr($arg,0,$precision,$encoding);
When you're using Google translator, you have to 'escape' the 'conversion specifications' by putting <span class="notranslate"></span> around them.
Like this:
<?php
function getGoogleTranslation($sString, $bEscapeParams = true)
{
// "escape" sprintf paramerters
if ($bEscapeParams)
{
$sPatern = '/(?:%%|%(?:[0-9]+\$)?[+-]?(?:[ 0]|\'.)?-?[0-9]*(?:\.[0-9]+)?[bcdeufFosxX])/';
$sEscapeString = '<span class="notranslate">$0</span>';
$sString = preg_replace($sPatern, $sEscapeString, $sString);
}
// Compose data array (English to Dutch)
$aData = array(
'v' => '1.0',
'q' => $sString,
'langpair' => 'en|nl',
);
// Initialize connection
$rService = curl_init();
// Connection settings
curl_setopt($rService, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate');
curl_setopt($rService, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($rService, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $aData);
// Execute request
$sResponse = curl_exec($rService);
// Close connection
curl_close($rService);
// Extract text from JSON response
$oResponse = json_decode($sResponse);
if (isset($oResponse->responseData->translatedText))
{
$sTranslation = $oResponse->responseData->translatedText;
}
else
{
// If some error occured, use the original string
$sTranslation = $sString;
}
// Replace "notranslate" tags
if ($bEscapeParams)
{
$sEscapePatern = '/<span class="notranslate">([^<]*)<\/span>/';
$sTranslation = preg_replace($sEscapePatern, '$1', $sTranslation);
}
// Return result
return $sTranslation;
}
?>
Thanks to MelTraX for defining the RegExp!
Fix for sprintfn function for named arguments (http://php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php#94608):
Change the first line from:
$arg_nums = array_slice(array_flip(array_keys(array(0 => 0) + $args)), 1);
to:
$arg_nums = array_keys($args);
array_unshift($arg_nums, 0);
$arg_nums = array_flip(array_slice($arg_nums, 1, NULL, true));
I've performed a simple speed test. sprintf against PHP string concatenation operator. Test was performed on PHP 7.3 for 1 million interations.
I run this several times and what I've noted that string concatenation took about 2.9 seconds, sprintf took 4.3 seconds.
I was thinking about what is faster, what is better to do when we're going to format our string (for example, the message to the user or for log purposes) containing some variables values. Is it better to concatenate string with variables using operator (dot ".") or to use sprintf. The answer is: when you do not plan to implement any multilanguage mechanisms and feel good with hardcoding some texts, the "dot" is almost 1.5 times faster!
Here's the code:
echo 'Start' . PHP_EOL;
$vS_text = 'some text';
$vS = '';
$vf = microtime(true);
for ($vI = 0; $vI < 1000000; $vI++) {
$vS = 'Start ' . $vI . ' ' . $vS_text . ' ' . $vf . ' end';
}
$vf = microtime(true) - $vf;
echo 'Concat:' . $vf . PHP_EOL;
$vS = '';
$vf = microtime(true);
for ($vI = 0; $vI < 1000000; $vI++) {
$vS = sprintf('Start %d %s %f end', $vI, $vS_text, $vf);
}
$vf = microtime(true) - $vf;
echo 'Spritf:' . $vf . PHP_EOL;
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.82");
// result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.85");
// result: 123456789012345.84
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.87");
//result: 123456789012345.88
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.820");
//result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.821");
//result: 123456789012345.83
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.828");
//result: 123456789012345.83
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.8209");
//result : 123456789012345.83
echo sprintf("%.2f", "1234567890123456.82");
//result: 1234567890123456.75
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.82002");
//result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.820001");
//result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.820101");
//result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.820201");
//result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.820301");
//result: 123456789012345.81
echo sprintf("%.2f", "123456789012345.820401");
//result: 123456789012345.83