String output: format or concat in C#?

Question

Let\'s say that you want to output or concat strings. Which of the following styles do you prefer?

• var p = new { FirstName = \"Bill\", LastName = \"Ga

Answer 1

Concatenating strings is fine in a simple scenario like that - it is more complicated with anything more complicated than that, even LastName, FirstName. With the format you can see, at a glance, what the final structure of the string will be when reading the code, with concatenation it becomes almost impossible to immediately discern the final result (except with a very simple example like this one).

What that means in the long run is that when you come back to make a change to your string format, you will either have the ability to pop in and make a few adjustments to the format string, or wrinkle your brow and start moving around all kinds of property accessors mixed with text, which is more likely to introduce problems.

If you're using .NET 3.5 you can use an extension method like this one and get an easy flowing, off the cuff syntax like this:

string str = "{0} {1} is my friend. {3}, {2} is my boss.".FormatWith(prop1,prop2,prop3,prop4);

Finally, as your application grows in complexity you may decide that to sanely maintain strings in your application you want to move them into a resource file to localize or simply into a static helper. This will be MUCH easier to achieve if you have consistently used formats, and your code can be quite simply refactored to use something like

string name = String.Format(ApplicationStrings.General.InformalUserNameFormat,this.FirstName,this.LastName);