How to interpolate variables in strings in JavaScript, without concatenation?

Question

I know in PHP we can do something like this:

$hello = "foo";
$my_string = "I pity the $hello";

Output: "I pity the foo"

I was wondering if this same thing is possible in JavaScript as well. Using variables inside strings without using concatenation — it looks more concise and elegant to write.

Answer 1

You can take advantage of Template Literals and use this syntax:

`String text ${expression}`

Template literals are enclosed by the back-tick (` `) (grave accent) instead of double or single quotes.

This feature has been introduced in ES2015 (ES6).

Example

var a = 5;
var b = 10;
console.log(`Fifteen is ${a + b}.`);
// "Fifteen is 15.

How neat is that?

Bonus:

It also allows for multi-line strings in javascript without escaping, which is great for templates:

return `
    <div class="${foo}">
         ...
    </div>
`;

Browser support:

As this syntax is not supported by older browsers (mostly Internet Explorer), you may want to use Babel/Webpack to transpile your code into ES5 to ensure it will run everywhere.

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Side note:

Starting from IE8+ you can use basic string formatting inside console.log:

console.log('%s is %d.', 'Fifteen', 15);
// Fifteen is 15.