Actionscript 3.0 String With Format?

Question

How can i format a string with supplied variables in AS3?

//vars
var myNumber:Number = 12;
var myString:String = "Months";
var myObject:MovieClip = year;

//string
myString.txt = "One (?) consists of (?) consecutive (?)", string(myObject), string(myNumber), myString;

so in the string above, i would like myString to display "One year consists of 12 consecutive Months", but i'm new to AS3 and do not know how to properly format a string.

i'm sure that i'll have to cast the number variable into a string, string(myNumber), but i don't know if casting a movie clip variable to a string, string(myMovieClip), will return the name of the movie clip or produce an error. i'm willing to bet on the later.

Answer 1

The answers to this similar question suggest using the Formatter class or StringUtil.substitute().

The latter looks the simplest; in your case you would use it like this:

var str:String = "One {0} consists of {1} consecutive {2}";
var newString:String = StringUtil.substitute(str, myObject, myNumber, myString);

substitute() should automatically cast its arguments to String, but I'm not sure if, as in your code, you can cast a MovieClip (myObject) as a String.

Another good option, especially if you've used printf in other programming languages, is this third-party printf-as3 function.