Printf and sprintf formatting in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Printf and sprintf formatting

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple PHP script to format and display information about a product in a neat way. This is useful when you want to show prices, quantities, and names clearly on a webpage or in logs.

🎯 Goal: Build a PHP script that uses printf and sprintf to format product details like name, price, and quantity with specific formatting rules.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create variables for product name, price, and quantity with exact values

Create a format string variable for formatting output

Use sprintf to format the product details into a string

Use printf to print the formatted string

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Formatting output is important when showing prices and quantities clearly on websites or reports.

💼 Career

Many jobs require formatting data for display or logging, and knowing <code>printf</code> and <code>sprintf</code> helps create professional outputs.

1

DATA SETUP: Create product variables

Create three variables: $productName with the value "Coffee Mug", $price with the value 12.5, and $quantity with the value 4.

PHP

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use = to assign values to variables. Strings need quotes.

2

CONFIGURATION: Create a format string

Create a variable called $format and set it to the string "Product: %s | Price: $%.2f | Quantity: %d\n". This string will be used to format the output.

PHP

<?php
$productName = "Coffee Mug";
$price = 12.5;
$quantity = 4;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The format string uses %s for strings, %.2f for floating numbers with 2 decimals, and %d for integers.

3

CORE LOGIC: Format the product details using sprintf

Create a variable called $formattedString and set it to the result of sprintf using $format, $productName, $price, and $quantity as arguments.

PHP

<?php
$productName = "Coffee Mug";
$price = 12.5;
$quantity = 4;
$format = "Product: %s | Price: $%.2f | Quantity: %d\n";
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use sprintf with the format string and variables in the correct order.

4

OUTPUT: Print the formatted string using printf

Use printf to print the variable $formattedString.

PHP

<?php
$productName = "Coffee Mug";
$price = 12.5;
$quantity = 4;
$format = "Product: %s | Price: $%.2f | Quantity: %d\n";
$formattedString = sprintf($format, $productName, $price, $quantity);
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use printf with the formatted string variable to display the output.