C++11 Variadic Templates implementation of parameterized strings

C++11 introduces variadic templates that allow nice way to have generic functions with unknown arguments, especially when used in recursive way. This makes easy to implement functions that before were cumbersome to write or hard to use.

Nice use case are parametric formatted strings where part of the strings are replaced with run time data. For example:

"Hello {0}, how are you?"
"Hello {name}, you logged in last {date}".

This find of format is quite easy to implement with recursive variadic templates so that it supports both indexed  and named replacement.

inline std::string format_r(int /*pos*/, std::string format) { return format; }
inline std::string format(const std::string format) { return format; }

template <typename T, typename... ARGS>
std::string format_r(int pos, std::string format, const T&amp; value, ARGS... args);

// convenience short hand for building a format parameter
template <typename... ARGS>
std::pair<ARGS...> _p(ARGS... args) { return std::make_pair(std::forward<ARGS>(args)...); };

template <typename K, typename T, typename... ARGS>
std::string format_r(int pos, std::string format, const std::pair<K, T>& value, ARGS... args)
{
    std::ostringstream os;
    os << value.second;
    auto parameter = str("{", value.first, "}");
    replace_all(format, parameter, std::string(os.str()));
    return format_r(pos + 1, format, std::forward<ARGS>(args)...);
}

template <typename T, typename... ARGS>
std::string format_r(int pos, std::string format, const &T value, ARGS... args)
{
    return format_r(pos, format, std::make_pair(str(pos), value), std::forward<ARGS>(args)...);
}

template <typename T, typename... ARGS>
std::string format(const std::string format, const &T value, ARGS... args)
{
    return format_r(0, format, value, std::forward<ARGS>(args)...);
}

Format function wraps a recursive function that builds the string by replacing one parameter at a time and then processing it again for the next argument until it runs out of parameters.

String conversions are handled with std::ostringstream that supports overloaded ‘<<‘ operation for most common data types.

Format function can be called with index formatting:

using util::format;
format("Hello {0}!", "World"); // Hello World
format("{0} {1}!", "Hello", "World"); // Hello World
format("{0} + {1} = {2}", 1, 2, 3); // 1 + 2 = 3

Or alternatively with explicit parameter names:

using util;
format("Hello {what}!", _p("what", "World"));
format("{word} {other}!", _p("word", "World"), _p("other", "World"));
format("{a} + {b} = {c}", _p("a", 1), _p("b", 2), _p("c", 3));

Get full implementation ftom https://github.com/tikonen/blog/tree/master/variadicformat