Creating dynamic strings.
language-essentials
Description
String formatting is an incredibly useful tool for building dynamic strings in Go programs. It will allow you to build strings using variable's as input.
Definitions
String Formatting
The process of dynamically building strings based on variables and preset values. For example, lets say you are bulding a client dashboard that displays a welcome message. For this you might want to create a greeting that is along the lines of:
Hello <name> The weather today is <current_temperature> degrees. You have <email_count> new emails.
.
To do this you could do:
name := "John Smith" // A dummy name
emailCount := 3 // A representation of users # of new emails
currentTemperature := 20.3567 // A representation of the current temperature in celsius
fmt.Printf("Hello, %s The weather today is %f degrees. You have %d new emails.",
name, currentTemperature, emailCount)
Note that fmt.Printf() can be used to format and immediately print strings. You can also use fmt.Sprintf() to just build the string and use it later.
For example:
name := "John Smith" // A dummy name
emailCount := 3 // A representation of users # of new emails
currentTemperature := 20.3567 // A representation of the current temperature in celsius
// Create greeting string to be used later
greeting := fmt.Sprintf("Hello, %s The weather today is %b degrees. You have %d new emails.",
name, currentTemperature, emailCount)
Usage
Running
All of the code in the demo requires no external dependencies, it can be run by using one of two methods:
- You can run the file directly via
go run stringFormatting.go
- You can compile the file using
go build stringFormatting.go
then run the resulting binary (.exe on windows, and regular binary on mac/linux).
Real World Applications
String formatting is used all over the place to do everything from welcome messages to system and program information output messages.