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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=US-ASCII">
<title>Text Formatting</title>
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</head>
<body>
<h1>Text Formatting</h1>
<p>
2016-08-19
</p>
<address>
Victor Zverovich, victor.zverovich@gmail.com
</address>
<p>
<a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a><br>
<a href="#Design">Design</a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Syntax">Format String Syntax</a><br>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Extensibility">Extensibility</a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Locale">Locale Support</a><br>
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<a href="#Wording">Wording</a><br>
<a href="#References">References</a><br>
</p>
<h2><a name="Introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
<p>
This paper proposes a new text formatting functionality that can be used as a
safe and extensible alternative to the <code>printf</code> family of functions.
It is intended to complement the existing C++ I/O streams library and reuse
some of its infrastructure such as overloaded insertion operators for
user-defined types.
</p>
<p>
Example:
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<pre class="example">
<code>std::string message = std::format("The answer is {}.", 42);</code>
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</pre>
<h2><a name="Design">Design</a></h2>
<h3><a name="Syntax">Format String Syntax</a></h3>
<p>
Variations of the printf format string syntax are arguably the most popular
among the programming languages and C++ itself inherits <code>printf</code>
from C <a href="#1">[1]</a>. The advantage of the printf syntax is that many
programmers are familiar with it. However, in its current form it has a number
of issues:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Many format specifiers like <code>hh</code>, <code>h</code>, <code>l</code>,
<code>j</code>, etc. are used only to convey type information.
They are redundant in type-safe formatting and would unnecessarily
complicate specification and parsing.</li>
<li>There is no standard way to extend the syntax for user-defined types.</li>
<li>There are subtle differences between different implementations. For example,
POSIX positional arguments <a href="#2">[2]</a> are not supported on
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some systems <a href="#6">[6]</a>.</li>
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<li>Using <code>'%'</code> in a custom format specifier, e.g. for
<code>put_time</code>-like time formatting, poses difficulties.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Although it is possible to address these issues, this will break compatibility
and can potentially be more confusing to users than introducing a different
syntax.
</p>
</p>
Therefore we propose a new syntax based on the ones used in Python
<a href="#3">[3]</a>, the .NET family of languages <a href="#4">[4]</a>,
and Rust <a href="#5">[5]</a>. This syntax uses <code>'{'</code> and
<code>'}'</code> as replacement field delimiters instead of <code>'%'</code>
and it is described in details in TODO:link. Here are some of the advantages:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Consistent and easy to parse mini-language focused on formatting rather
than conveying type information</li>
<li>Extensibility and support for custom format strings for user-defined
types</li>
<li>Positional arguments</li>
<li>Support for both locale-specific and locale-independent formatting (see
<a href="#Locale">Locale Support</a>)</li>
<li>Minor formatting improvements such as center alignment and binary format
</ul>
<p>
The syntax is expressive enough to enable translation, possibly automated,
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of most printf format strings. The correspondence between <code>printf</code>
and the new syntax is given in the following table.
</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th>printf</th><th>new</th><th>comment</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>-</td><td>&lt;</td><td>left alignment</td></tr>
<tr><td>+</td><td>+</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><em>space</em></td><td><em>space</em></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>hh</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>h</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>l</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>ll</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>j</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>z</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>t</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>L</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>c</td><td>c (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>s</td><td>s (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>d</td><td>d (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>i</td><td>d (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>o</td><td>o</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>x</td><td>x</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>X</td><td>X</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>u</td><td>d (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>f</td><td>f</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>F</td><td>F</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>e</td><td>e</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>E</td><td>E</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>a</td><td>a</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>A</td><td>A</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>g</td><td>g (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>G</td><td>G</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>n</td><td>unused</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>p</td><td>p (optional)</td><td></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
Width and precision are represented similarly in <code>printf</code> and the
proposed syntax with the only difference that runtime value is specified by
<code>*</code> in the former and <code>{}</code> in the latter, possibly with
the index of the argument inside the braces.
</p>
<p>
As can be seen from the table above, most of the specifiers remain the same
which simplifies migration from <code>printf</code>. Notable difference is in
the alignment specification. The proposed syntax allows left, center, and right
alignment represented by <code>'&lt;'</code>, <code>'^'</code>, and
<code>'&gt;'</code> respectively which is more expressive than the corresponding
<code>printf</code> syntax.
</p>
<h3><a name="Extensibility">Extensibility</a></h3>
<p>
Both format string syntax and API are designed with extensibility in mind.
The mini-language can be extended for user-defined types and users can provide
functions that do parsing and formatting for such types.
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</p>
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<p>The general syntax of a replacement field in a format string is
<dl>
<dt><em>replacement-field</em>:</dt>
<dd>
<code>{</code> <em>integer<sub>opt</sub></em> <code>}</code><br/>
<code>{</code> <em>integer<sub>opt</sub></em>
<code>:</code> <em>format-spec</em> <code>}</code>
</dd>
</dl>
<p>
where <em>format-spec</em> is predefined for built-in types, but can be
customized for user-defined types. For example, time formatting
TODO: elaborate</p>
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<h3><a name="Locale">Locale Support</a></h3>
<p>TODO</p>
<h2><a name="Wording">Wording</a></h2>
<p>TODO</p>
<h2><a name="Implementation">Implementation</a></h2>
<p>
The ideas proposed in this paper have been implemented in the open-source fmt
library. TODO: link
</p>
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<h2><a name="References">References</a></h2>
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<p>
<a name="1">[1]</a>
<cite>The <code>fprintf</code> function. ISO/IEC 9899:2011. 7.21.6.1.</cite><br/>
<a name="2">[2]</a>
<cite><a href="http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fprintf.html">
fprintf, printf, snprintf, sprintf - print formatted output</a>. The Open
Group Base Specifications Issue 6 IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition.</cite><br/>
<a name="3">[3]</a>
<cite><a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#format-string-syntax">
6.1.3. Format String Syntax</a>. Python 3.5.2 documentation.</cite><br/>
<a name="4">[4]</a>
<cite><a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.string.format(v=vs.110).aspx">
String.Format Method</a>. .NET Framework Class Library.</cite><br/>
<a name="5">[5]</a>
<cite><a href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/fmt/">
Module <code>std::fmt</code></a>. The Rust Standard Library.</cite><br/>
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<a name="6">[6]</a>
<cite><a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/56e442dc(v=vs.120).aspx">
Format Specification Syntax: printf and wprintf Functions</a>. C++ Language and
Standard Libraries.</cite><br/>
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</p>
</body>
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