Question

Does Ada have support for something similar to an Obj-C variable in a string?

NSLog(@"This is text, here's a variable %f", floatvar);

I’d like to be writing nice one-liners, like:
put_line("The answer is %v", answer);

instead of

put_line("The answer is ");
put(answer);

Answer 1

Assuming you have F : Float;, you can say

Put_Line (“the answer is “ & Float’Image (F));

This doesn’t work so well if you want neat formatting, because the format output by ’Image is fixed as specified in the ARM (that link’s actually to ’Wide_Wide_Image, not ’Image, but the format’s the same).

If you’re using GNAT, you could write the above as

Put_Line (“the answer is “ & F'Img);

which saves (a) characters and (b) remembering the type concerned, but that’s not portable.