String.Format like functionality in T-SQL?

Question

I\'m looking for a built-in function/extended function in T-SQL for string manipulation similar to the String.Format method in .NET.

Answer 1

Here is my version. Can be extended to accommodate more number of parameters and can extend formatting based on type. Currently only date and datetime types are formatted.

Example:

select dbo.FormatString('some string %s some int %s date %s','"abcd"',100,cast(getdate() as date),DEFAULT,DEFAULT)
select dbo.FormatString('some string %s some int %s date time %s','"abcd"',100,getdate(),DEFAULT,DEFAULT)

Output:

some string "abcd" some int 100 date 29-Apr-2017
some string "abcd" some int 100 date time 29-Apr-2017 19:40

Functions:

create function dbo.FormatValue(@param sql_variant)
returns nvarchar(100)
begin
/*
Tejasvi Hegde, 29-April-2017
Can extend formatting here.
*/
    declare @result nvarchar(100)

    if (SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@param,'BaseType') in ('date'))
    begin
       select @result = REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(11), @param, 106), ' ', '-')
    end
    else  if (SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@param,'BaseType') in ('datetime','datetime2'))
    begin
       select @result = REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(11), @param, 106), ' ', '-')+' '+CONVERT(VARCHAR(5),@param,108)
    end
    else
    begin
       select @result = cast(@param as nvarchar(100))
    end
    return @result

/*
BaseType:
bigint
binary
char
date
datetime
datetime2
datetimeoffset
decimal
float
int
money
nchar
numeric
nvarchar
real
smalldatetime
smallint
smallmoney
time
tinyint
uniqueidentifier
varbinary
varchar
*/   

end;


create function dbo.FormatString(
    @format nvarchar(4000)
    ,@param1 sql_variant = null
    ,@param2 sql_variant = null
    ,@param3 sql_variant = null
    ,@param4 sql_variant = null
    ,@param5 sql_variant = null
    )
returns nvarchar(4000)
begin
/*
Tejasvi Hegde, 29-April-2017

select dbo.FormatString('some string value %s some int %s date %s','"abcd"',100,cast(getdate() as date),DEFAULT,DEFAULT)
select dbo.FormatString('some string value %s some int %s date time %s','"abcd"',100,getdate(),DEFAULT,DEFAULT)
*/

    declare @result nvarchar(4000)

    select @param1 = dbo.formatValue(@param1)
    ,@param2 = dbo.formatValue(@param2)
    ,@param3 = dbo.formatValue(@param3)
    ,@param4 = dbo.formatValue(@param4)
    ,@param5 = dbo.formatValue(@param5)

    select @param2 = cast(@param2 as nvarchar)
    EXEC xp_sprintf @result OUTPUT,@format , @param1, @param2, @param3, @param4, @param5

    return @result

end;