Passing Array formatter to printf

[[deleted]]

I have a string which I want to use to define the data that is passed to printf.

The data is an array of structure:

//print_r() output of $data
      [0] => Array
        (
          [id] => 1
          [name] => joe blogs
          [url] => /joeblogs/
        )

//declare the format
$format = "<a href=\"%s\">%s</a>";
//declare the order (actually being pulled from db)
$order = "name,url";
//create an array of order for use later
$order_array = explode(",",$order);

now normally if the order wasn't dynamic I would do something like:

printf($format,$data[0][name],$data[0][url]);

the bit which is

$data[0][name],$data[0][url]

within the printf I want to automatically generate depending on the order of values within $order_array ($order_array may contain 'n' values so a foreach would be used probably).

Has anyone got any clues as how to generate the string above from the array $order_array and correctly pass it to printf?

Help would be GREATLY appreciate..

Cheers!

[HalfaBee]

You need something along the lines of this.
HalfaBee

<?

$a[] = array( "id"=>'1',"name"=>'joe',"url"=>'myurl' );
$format = "%s %s %s";
$s="";
$i = 0;
foreach( $a[$i] as $key => $value )
{
    $s .= "\$a[$i][$key],";
}
$s=preg_replace( "/,$/","",$s );
$sp = "\$result = sprintf( \"$format\",$s );";

echo "sp = $sp<br>";

eval( $sp );
echo "Result = $result";

?>

[azrath]

Say you have a printf format string $format and an array $data that contains the data values you want to format. Then the following bit of code should spit out your formatted printf, provided that your $format is set up properly.

foreach ( $data as $record ) {
   // ... fetch the order array as $order_array
   $args = array(); // an array of args to printf
   foreach ( $order_array as $field )       

      $args[] = $record[$field]; 

   // prepend the format string as the first argument
   array_unshift($args, $format); 
   // do the printf
   call_user_func_array('printf', $args);
}

I've used code like this successfully on >= 4.3 versions of PHP.

Hope that helps,
Patrick.

[[deleted]]

Nice one boyos!!! worked a treat..
I went with azrath's example.

cheers.