One of the things I liked about Perl was string interpolation.
If you use a variable name in a string, the variable will expand to its value.
For example, if you a variable $x which equals 42, then the string “The answer is $x.
” will expand to “The answer is 42.
” Perl requires variables to start with sigils, like the $ in front of scalar variables.
Sigils are widely considered to be ugly, but they have their benefits.
Here, for example, $x is clearly a variable name, whereas x would not be.
You can do something similar to Perl’s string interpolation in Python with so-called f-strings.
If you put an f in front of an opening quotation mark, an expression in braces will be replaced with its value.
>>> x = 42 >>> f”The answer is {x}.
” The answer is 42.
You could also say >>> f”The answer is {6*7}.
” for example.
The f-string is just a string; it’s only printed because we’re working from the Python REPL.
The glue package for R lets you do something very similar to Python’s f-strings.
> library(glue) > x <- 42 > glue(“The answer is {x}.
“) The answer is 42.
> glue(“The answer is {6*7}.
“) The answer is 42.
As with f-strings, glue returns a string.
It doesn’t print the string, though the string is displayed because we’re working from the REPL, the R REPL in this case.
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