CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netstringformat
Javier Salas
Javier Salas

Reputation: 1188

How to format a string with fixed width fields

I'm was wondering if there is a way to format a string to format a string, what I mean is, I have a foreach loop that get a information from some files and how many records has each file, as the length of each file is different the format is change.

My example is, I have 3 files:

 1.- MyFile1.txt   RecordCount: 5
 2.- anotherfile.txt    RecordCount: 8
 3.- MyTestFile.doc   RecordCount: 17

As you can see are not formated, I want something like this:

 1.- MyFile1.txt        RecordCount: 5
 2.- anotherfile.txt    RecordCount: 8
 3.- MyTestFile.doc     RecordCount: 17

does not matter the length of the file, RecordCount will be in the same place.

What I have is this:

 foreach (RemoteFileInfo file in MySession.EnumerateRemoteFiles(directory.RemoteDirectory, directory.RemoteFiles, EnumerationOptions.None))
 {
     BodyMessage.Append((index + 1) + ". " + file.Name + "        Record Count: " + File.ReadAllLines(Path.Combine(directory.LocalDirectory, file.Name)).Length.ToString() + "\n");
     index++;
 }

Any idea?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 21663

Answers (4)

Muhammad Awais
Muhammad Awais

Reputation: 4492

I think you can use PadRight or PadLeft function for this.

string _line = item.FirstName.PadRight(20) + item.Number.PadRight(20) + item.State.PadRight(20)  + item.Zip.PadRight(20);
file.WriteLine(_line);

Upvotes: 1

pixelbadger
pixelbadger

Reputation: 1596

Firstly, use string.Format, rather than concatenation:

int lineCount = File.ReadAllLines(Path.Combine(directory.LocalDirectory, file.Name)).Length.ToString();
string message = string.Format("{0}. {1}\t Record Count: " {2}\n", (index + 1), file.Name, lineCount);

To answer your question, you can align text within a formatted string using the following syntax:

string message = string.Format("{0}. {1,-10}\t Record Count: " {2}\n", (index + 1), file.Name, lineCount);

The additional -10 will ensure that the inserted text is left-padded to 10 characters.

Upvotes: 3

soumasandesu
soumasandesu

Reputation: 311

foreach (RemoteFileInfo file in MySession.EnumerateRemoteFiles(directory.RemoteDirectory, directory.RemoteFiles, EnumerationOptions.None))
{
    int lines= File.ReadAllLines(Path.Combine(directory.LocalDirectory, file.Name)).Length.ToString();
    string appending = String.Format("{0,2}.- {1,-18} RecordCount: {3}", file.Name, lines);
    BodyMessage.Append(appending);
    index++;
}

See MSDN: String.Format Method.

Upvotes: 5

Tyler
Tyler

Reputation: 484

You can try using \t in your strings which will insert a tab or you can try padding each portion so they always take up the same amount space.

For example:

string fileName = file.Name.PadRight(50);

will ensure that the string fileName is at least 50 characters long. I say at least because you could always have a file name that is larger than 50 characters.

Upvotes: 4

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