I am playing with the new ES6 Template Literals feature and the first thing that came to my head was a String.format
for JavaScript so I went about implementing a prototype:
String.prototype.format = function() {
var self = this;
arguments.forEach(function(val,idx) {
self["p"+idx] = val;
});
return this.toString();
};
console.log(`Hello, ${p0}. This is a ${p1}`.format("world", "test"));
However, the Template Literal is evaluated before it's passed to my prototype method. Is there any way I can write the above code to defer the result until after I have dynamically created the elements?
I can see three ways around this:
Use template strings like they were designed to be used, without any format
function:
console.log(`Hello, ${"world"}. This is a ${"test"}`);
// might make more sense with variables:
var p0 = "world", p1 = "test";
console.log(`Hello, ${p0}. This is a ${p1}`);
or even function parameters for actual deferral of the evaluation:
const welcome = (p0, p1) => `Hello, ${p0}. This is a ${p1}`;
console.log(welcome("world", "test"));
Don't use a template string, but a plain string literal:
String.prototype.format = function() {
var args = arguments;
return this.replace(/\$\{p(\d)\}/g, function(match, id) {
return args[id];
});
};
console.log("Hello, ${p0}. This is a ${p1}".format("world", "test"));
Use a tagged template literal. Notice that the substitutions will still be evaluated without interception by the handler, so you cannot use identifiers like p0
without having a variable named so. This behavior may change if a different substitution body syntax proposal is accepted (Update: it was not).
function formatter(literals, ...substitutions) {
return {
format: function() {
var out = [];
for(var i=0, k=0; i < literals.length; i++) {
out[k++] = literals[i];
out[k++] = arguments[substitutions[i]];
}
out[k] = literals[i];
return out.join("");
}
};
}
console.log(formatter`Hello, ${0}. This is a ${1}`.format("world", "test"));
// Notice the number literals: ^ ^