Better String formatting in Scala

In Scala 2.10 you can use string interpolation.

val height = 1.9d
val name = "James"
println(f"$name%s is $height%2.2f meters tall")  // James is 1.90 meters tall

Well, if your only problem is making the order of the parameters more flexible, this can be easily done:

scala> "%d %d" format (1, 2)
res0: String = 1 2

scala> "%2$d %1$d" format (1, 2)
res1: String = 2 1

And there's also regex replacement with the help of a map:

scala> val map = Map("number" -> 1)
map: scala.collection.immutable.Map[java.lang.String,Int] = Map((number,1))

scala> val getGroup = (_: scala.util.matching.Regex.Match) group 1
getGroup: (util.matching.Regex.Match) => String = <function1>

scala> val pf = getGroup andThen map.lift andThen (_ map (_.toString))
pf: (util.matching.Regex.Match) => Option[java.lang.String] = <function1>

scala> val pat = "#\\{([^}]*)\\}".r
pat: scala.util.matching.Regex = #\{([^}]*)\}

scala> pat replaceSomeIn ("This is #{number} string", pf)
res43: String = This is 1 string

Maybe the Scala-Enhanced-Strings-Plugin can help you. Look here:

Scala-Enhanced-Strings-Plugin Documentation

This the answer I came here looking for:

"This is %s string".format(1)

You can easily implement a richer formatting yourself (with the "enhance my library" approach):

scala> implicit def RichFormatter(string: String) = new {
     |   def richFormat(replacement: Map[String, Any]) =
     |     (string /: replacement) {(res, entry) => res.replaceAll("#\\{%s\\}".format(entry._1), entry._2.toString)}
     | }
RichFormatter: (string: String)java.lang.Object{def richFormat(replacement: Map[String,Any]): String}

scala> "This is #{number} string" richFormat Map("number" -> 1)
res43: String = This is 1 string

Or on more recent Scala versions since the original answer:

implicit class RichFormatter(string: String) {
  def richFormat(replacement: Map[String, Any]): String =
    replacement.foldLeft(string) { (res, entry) =>
      res.replaceAll("#\\{%s\\}".format(entry._1), entry._2.toString)
    }
}