general string format?

[retsyo]

we can use

pi: 3.1415

print ["pi = " to :string .format: ".3f" pi]

to print

pi =  3.142

but we can't use

print [to :string .format: "pi = .3f" pi]

which is, however, nice for complex string. So my question is, how to do such C's printf in arturo?

Thanks

[RickBarretto]

You're right, now the equivalent is the to or as.
For floating-point formatting, you can use to :string .format: ".2f" ... as for :dates as well.
For binary, hex, decimal and others, you can use as for it.

Examples

print -> to :string .format: "MMM dd yy" now        ; => Sep 03 23
print -> "$" ++ to :string .format: ".2f" 15.05648  ; => $15.05
print -> "x" ++ as.hex 15     ; => xf
print -> "b" ++ as.binary 14  ; => b1110

Ideas

I do agree with you and new ways to formatting would be good, something inside the string interpolation as Python does now, or some C-ish formatting.

I think a print.format: "{.2f} {MMM dd yy} {as.hex}" [values ...] is great too. For now, the project has other priorities, but this idea would be good in a near future.
@drkameleon, what do you think?