Why use String.Format?
First, I find
string s = String.Format(
"Your order {0} will be delivered on {1:yyyy-MM-dd}. Your total cost is {2:C}.",
orderNumber,
orderDeliveryDate,
orderCost
);
far easier to read, write and maintain than
string s = "Your order " +
orderNumber.ToString() +
" will be delivered on " +
orderDeliveryDate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd") +
"." +
"Your total cost is " +
orderCost.ToString("C") +
".";
Look how much more maintainable the following is
string s = String.Format(
"Year = {0:yyyy}, Month = {0:MM}, Day = {0:dd}",
date
);
over the alternative where you'd have to repeat date
three times.
Second, the format specifiers that String.Format
provides give you great flexibility over the output of the string in a way that is easier to read, write and maintain than just using plain old concatenation. Additionally, it's easier to get culture concerns right with String.Format
.
Third, when performance does matter, String.Format
will outperform concatenation. Behind the scenes it uses a StringBuilder
and avoids the Schlemiel the Painter problem.
I can see a number of reasons:
Readability
string s = string.Format("Hey, {0} it is the {1}st day of {2}. I feel {3}!", _name, _day, _month, _feeling);
vs:
string s = "Hey," + _name + " it is the " + _day + "st day of " + _month + ". I feel " + feeling + "!";
Format Specifiers (and this includes the fact you can write custom formatters)
string s = string.Format("Invoice number: {0:0000}", _invoiceNum);
vs:
string s = "Invoice Number = " + ("0000" + _invoiceNum).Substr(..... /*can't even be bothered to type it*/)
String Template Persistence
What if I want to store string templates in the database? With string formatting:
_id _translation
1 Welcome {0} to {1}. Today is {2}.
2 You have {0} products in your basket.
3 Thank-you for your order. Your {0} will arrive in {1} working days.
vs:
_id _translation
1 Welcome
2 to
3 . Today is
4 .
5 You have
6 products in your basket.
7 Someone
8 just shoot
9 the developer.
Besides being a bit easier to read and adding a few more operators, it's also beneficial if your application is internationalized. A lot of times the variables are numbers or key words which will be in a different order for different languages. By using String.Format, your code can remain unchanged while different strings will go into resource files. So, the code would end up being
String.Format(resource.GetString("MyResourceString"), str1, str2, str3);
While your resource strings end up being
English: "blah blah {0} blah blah {1} blah {2}"
Russian: "{0} blet blet blet {2} blet {1}"
Where Russian may have different rules on how things get addressed so the order is different or sentence structure is different.