How to replace old ParamText/StandartAlert with newer CFString replacements?

Question

ParamText() is an really old way of replacing parameters in a string that is based on Pascal strings. Also StandardAlert is not quite Unicode ready.

The new message box (not so new) replacement is CFUserNotificationDisplayNotice but this one expects CFString and I found out that if I'm about to switch to using CFString I'm not able to use ParamText parameter replacement anymore.

Str255 alertString; // PascalString, yuck!
ParamText(NULL, NULL, minString, maxString);
localize( "A value between ^2 and ^3 is required.", &alertString );
StandardAlert( kAlertNoteAlert, (const unsigned char *)&alertString, nil, nil, &itemHit );

I found out that ParamText doesn't work with the new dialogs anymore and that Apple forgot to specify how to use them.

Is there any replacement available that would not require me to change the original parameters format in strings?

Answer 1

I found myself a solution but I'm not quite pleased about it.

CMutableStringRef alertString2;
...
alertString2 = CFStringCreateMutableCopy(NULL, CFStringGetLength(alertString), alertString);
CFStringFindAndReplace( alertString2, 
        CFSTR("^2"), 
        minRange,  // another CFString
        CFRangeMake(0, CFStringGetLength(alertString2)),
        0);