Variable width of strings using printf() in PrintWriter

Question

I am trying to achieve even indentation in my output. So that even if the strings vary in length, the width between the strings will continue to match. What I mean is if I want to print a text file with a person's first name, age, and weight, but I want the indentation to remain even

Ryan       1          1
Alexander 25        180
Ashish P. 51        217
Ben       19        130

I know that a fixed width will not work because the name can be very long or short

writer.printf("%s%10d%10d", name, age, weight);

I am doing this using the PrintWriter.printf(), although I imagine it applies to System.out.printf() and .format() as well.

Leos Literak · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-11 12:34:45Z

1

You may try to use tabulators to separate each field (\t char).

writer.printf("%s\t%d\t%d", name, age, weight);

But this may not work well, if the difference between length of shortest and longest name is bigger then the tabulator size. In this case you are out of luck and you will have to implement the logic yourself.

answered Feb 11, 2014 at 12:34

Leos Literak

9,46022 gold badges98 silver badges174 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Nopiforyou Over a year ago

Yes, that was one of the first methods I tried, but because of the different in length especially for name and the fact that tabs are done in multiples 4, the width isn't divided neatly as I wanted.

Leos Literak Over a year ago

You can iterate over names and find the longest name. Then calculate field position length and iterate again. Print number of spaces minus field length and field itself.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Variable width of strings using printf() in PrintWriter

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related