Make "{}" the default placeholder in format()?

[esotericpig]

Related: godotengine/godot-docs#10768

Currently, this doesn't work:

var string = "I have {} cats.".format([3])
print(string)

Instead, you need to do this:

var string = "I have {} cats.".format([3], "{}")
print(string)

[Calinou]

The default placeholder is already {_}, so changing it would break compatibility with existing projects:

https://github.com/godotengine/godot/blob/ef1153baf3343470b65258421a163c92455d32b3/core/string/ustring.h#L394

If you want to implement this in a backwards-compatible manner, the default placeholder should remain {_} but empty placeholders like {} should be parsed as ordered placeholders instead.

[esotericpig]

Okay, no worries then.

Probably anybody that used 4.3 or uses 4.4, have tried to use {} (without passing it in as the last param) and don't know about {_}, since it's at the top of the page.

• https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/gdscript/gdscript_format_string.html
• https://docs.godotengine.org/en/4.3/tutorials/scripting/gdscript/gdscript_format_string.html

The String.format() method: var string = "I have {} cats.".format([3])

{_} is at the bottom of the page, and I didn't know about until you said it and searched for it on the page.

Infix (default) | "Hi, {0} v{1}".format(["Godette", "3.0"], "{_}")

Especially if someone comes from a Python background, they probably encountered this, since {} works correctly.

I do see people using it, so best to just leave it as is:

https://github.com/search?q=%22%7B_%7D%22+path%3A*.gd&type=code

Strange choice, but I guess hindsight is 20/20.