My favorite way to generate SQL statements is with sprintf. So instead of using just concatenation: 
## silly example without DBI quoting
my $sql = "insert into mytable ("
             . join(",", @columns) . ") values ("
             . join(",", @values)  . ")";

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.. (which I happen to think is very ugly) I can use sprintf: 
my $sql = sprintf "insert into mytable (%s) values (%s)",
             join(",", @columns),
             join(",", @values);

[download]
So in this case, I really like the mini string-templating possiblities of s/printf, but of course I don't want to print the SQL statement to the screen, I want to send it to the database. Hence, sprintf.

This is nothing special about SQL statements, only that I often want to include the result of nontrivial expressions (i.e, not just $string) in the string. I can't interpolate a join statement (easily) inside a double-quoted string, and stringing together concatenation operations is ugly, so I use sprintf, which is easier to read (for me at least).

blokhead

In reply to Re: Why SprintF? by blokhead
in thread Why SprintF? by JasonCgi

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