Q:

Name PHP specifiers in printf() strings

Is there a way in PHP to name my specifiers like in Python?
I want this in PHP:
$foo = array('name' => 24);
printf("%(name)d", $foo);

I couldn't find nothing related on google or in the php manual.

A:

Nice question!
You can roll your own without too much trouble by working with regexes. I based the implementation on the idea of calling vsprintf, which is closest to the stated goal among the built-in printf family of functions:
function vsprintf_named($format, $args) {
    $names = preg_match_all('/%\((.*?)\)/', $format, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);

    $values = array();
    foreach($matches as $match) {
        $values[] = $args[$match[1]];
    }

    $format = preg_replace('/%\((.*?)\)/', '%', $format);
    return vsprintf($format, $values);
}

To test:
$foo = array('age' => 5, 'name' => 'john');
echo vsprintf_named("%(name)s is %(age)02d", $foo);

Update: My initial implementation was very lambda-happy. Turns out a super basic foreach will suffice, which also makes the function usable in PHP >= 4.1 (not 100% sure about the specific version, but should be around there).
See it in action.

A:

Use strtr:
$foo = array('%name%' => 24);
strtr("%name%", $foo); // 24

You could also do this:
"${foo['name']}"

Or this:
$name = 24;
"$name"

A:

You can do it with sprintf by numbering the parameters, like so:
echo sprintf('hello, %2$s. What is your %1$s', 'age', 'Jesse');

Outputs the following string: 

hello, Jesse. What is your age

