Sprintf equivalent in Java

Question

Printf got added to Java with the 1.5 release but I can\'t seem to find how to send the output to a string rather than a file (which is what sprintf does in C). Does anyone

Answer 1

Both solutions workto simulate printf, but in a different way. For instance, to convert a value to a hex string, you have the 2 following solutions:

• with format(), closest to sprintf():

  final static String HexChars = "0123456789abcdef";
  
  public static String getHexQuad(long v) {
      String ret;
      if(v > 0xffff) ret = getHexQuad(v >> 16); else ret = "";
      ret += String.format("%c%c%c%c",
          HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >> 12) & 0x0f)),
          HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >>  8) & 0x0f)),
          HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >>  4) & 0x0f)),
          HexChars.charAt((int) ( v        & 0x0f)));
      return ret;
  }
  

• with replace(char oldchar , char newchar), somewhat faster but pretty limited:

      ...
      ret += "ABCD".
          replace('A', HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >> 12) & 0x0f))).
          replace('B', HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >>  8) & 0x0f))).
          replace('C', HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >>  4) & 0x0f))).
          replace('D', HexChars.charAt((int) ( v        & 0x0f)));
      ...
  

• There is a third solution consisting of just adding the char to ret one by one (char are numbers that add to each other!) such as in:

  ...
  ret += HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >> 12) & 0x0f)));
  ret += HexChars.charAt((int) ((v >>  8) & 0x0f)));
  ...
  

...but that'd be really ugly.