Wiley-World.of.Warcraft.Programming.A.Guide.and.Reference.for.Creating.WoW.Addons

96 Part I ■ Learning to ProgramA format string can contain literal characters and special conversion codesthat are used along with the arguments to create the final result. Conversioncodes begin with a percent sign (%) and contain one of the following specifiersthat indicate what type of data the argument should be treated as:%c—Takes a number argument and formats it as the ASCII character thatcorresponds to the number.%d, %i—Takes a number argument and formats it as a signed integer.%o—Takes a number argument and formats it as an octal number.%u—Takes a number argument and formats it as an unsigned integer.%x—Takes a number argument and formats it as a hexadecimal number,using lowercase letters.%X—Takes a number argument and formats it as a hexadecimal number,using capital letters.%e—Takes a number argument and formats it as scientific notation, witha lowercase e.%E—Takes a number argument and formats it as scientific notation, withan uppercase E.%f—Takes a number argument and formats it as a floating-point number.%g and %G—Takes a number and formats it according to either %e (or %Eif %G is specified) or %f, depending on which is shortest.%q—Formats a string so it can safely be read back into a Lua interpreter.%s—Takes a string and formats it according to the supplied options.Several options can be used in a conversion specification between thepercentsignandthetypespecifier.Thefollowing options can be included, inthis specific order:1. Sign specification (either a + or a –) that causes a sign to be printed withany number. By default, the sign is only printed with negative numbers.2. A padding character (either a space, or a 0) that will be used whenpadding the result to the correct string width. By default, any results willbe padded with spaces to meet the correct width, if specified.3. An alignment specification that causes the result to be left-justified orright-justified. The default is right-justification, whereas a – characterwill make the result left-justified.4. A width specification that specifies the minimum width of the resultingstring.5. A precision specification that dictates how many decimal digits shouldbe displayed when formatting a floating-point number. When specifiedfor strings, the resulting string will be cut off at this number ofcharacters.