What is the meaning of the following line of code?

Question

I am learning ADO.NET and now I am trying to understand the SqlDataReader. I am trying to learning by using this tutorial and I am facing some difficulties now in understanding the following part of the code mentioned HERE:

while (rdr.Read())
    {
        // get the results of each column
        string contact = (string)rdr["ContactName"];
        string company = (string)rdr["CompanyName"];
        string city    = (string)rdr["City"];

        // print out the results
        Console.Write("{0,-25}", contact);
        Console.Write("{0,-20}", city);
        Console.Write("{0,-25}", company);
        Console.WriteLine();
    }

I want to understand the meaning of "{0, -25}"

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 04 '12 at 05:49

2

That is a format specifier for .NET Console.Write(). See documentation explaining here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9xdyw6yk.aspx

answered Jun 04 '12 at 05:49

dkamins

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 04 '12 at 05:51

2

This means that the WriteLine method schould print the value of the first parameter, in your case contact, to a width of 25 characters. The minus in front of the 25 indicates a left justified output.

answered Jun 04 '12 at 05:51

Mithrandir

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 04 '12 at 05:49

IN SqlDataReader, it reads record from database based on query. sqlDataReader read record at a time single row. it means rdr["ContactName"] is one value and it read and move to string contact and so on every fields. It fetch all record in while loop. And Console.Write("{0,-25}", contact) is used to format output.

What is the meaning of the following line of code?

3 Answers3