Question

I know the printf statement in PHP can format strings as follows:

//my variable 
$car = "BMW X6";

printf("I drive a %s",$car); // prints I drive a BMW X6, 

However, when I try to print an array using printf, there does not seem to be a way to format it. Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Here’s an extract from one of the comments on http://php.net/manual/en/function.printf.php:

[Editor’s Note: Or just use vprintf…]

If you want to do something like:

// this doesn't work
printf('There is a difference between %s and %s', array('good', 'evil'));   

Instead of

printf('There is a difference between %s and %s', 'good', 'evil'); 

You can use this function:

function printf_array($format, $arr) 
{ 
    return call_user_func_array('printf', array_merge((array)$format, $arr)); 
}  

Use it the following way:

$goodevil = array('good', 'evil'); 
printf_array('There is a difference between %s and %s', $goodevil); 

And it will print:

There is a difference between good and evil