formatting the string to look like a table

Question

I have a string which i have initialized to empty and building the string as seen below i have also got the preferred output i would like, whats the best mathod of doing this as this would be sent as an email. tak into account company names will be off different length.

string being buit

foreach(string s in array)
{
emailBody += s + "          Success" + Environment.NewLine;
}

Ouput of String

CompanyName    Success
CompanyName       Success
CompanyName         Success
CompanyName           Success
CompanyName         Success
CompanyName            Success
CompanyName          Success

Would like output like below

CompanyName   |   Success
CompanyName   |   Success
CompanyName   |   Success
CompanyName   |   Success
CompanyName   |   Success
CompanyName   |   Success
CompanyName   |   Success

Output of Solution given

qxeawgentina                                           Success
TweseqmeChile                                           Success
Vidqwedal                                           Success
qwebr                                           Success
Doqa_brasil                                           Success
Sedaqqagentina                                           Success
KnaqwertArtina                                           Success

I suggest you to use `StringBuilder` instead of `+=` <= just a tip — Kamil Budziewski, Aug 28 '13 at 12:01
In addition to what has been said in the answers, make sure you use a monospaced font... otherwise there's no way to properly align the columns — Thomas Levesque, Aug 28 '13 at 12:09

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 28 '13 at 12:01

4

PadLeft is a nice function to use for stuff like this. You could do something like this:

StringBuilder myString = new StringBuilder();
foreach(string s in array)
{
    myString.Append(s + "Success".PadLeft(15 - s.Length) + Environment.NewLine);
}
emailBody = myString.ToString();

Change the constant 15 to be the longest CompanyName you have in your collection, otherwise PadLeft will throw an exception when it becomes negative.

(Also StringBuilder is a good idea here as mentioned in the comments)

answered Aug 28 '13 at 12:01

Kevin DiTraglia

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Tip: add `StringBuilder` here :) – Kamil Budziewski Aug 28 '13 at 12:03
`15 - s`? It shouldn't be `15 - s.Length` ? – Soner Gönül Aug 28 '13 at 12:05
@SonerGönül Yes it should, also added `StringBuilder` – Kevin DiTraglia Aug 28 '13 at 12:05
@SimonPatel Right so the PadLeft will change based on the length of the company name – Kevin DiTraglia Aug 28 '13 at 13:21
see the output above i dont get the sucess in a line down – Simon Patel Aug 28 '13 at 13:29
@SimonPatel Are you using a monospaced font? Also I don't understand how you ended up with some many spaces when 15 is the max it could be, can you post a working sample of code that generated what you are seeing? – Kevin DiTraglia Aug 28 '13 at 13:42
I change the number to 50. i dont know.. that data is conming from a sql databse – Simon Patel Aug 28 '13 at 13:53
i dont know whether or not I'm using a monospaced font, but the data comes form database and stored on a datatable and the split at commas to make the array – Simon Patel Aug 28 '13 at 14:05

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

2

Have a look at this StackOverflow Question

Basically you can use string.Format and specify widths per placeholder, like so:

// Prints "--123       --"
string.Format("--{0,-10}--", 123);
// Prints "--       123--"
string.Format("--{0,10}--", 123);

Edit: Applying this to your example:

foreach(string s in array)
{
    emailBody += string.Format("{0, 25} | Success", s) + Environment.NewLine;
}

edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

Community

1
1

answered Aug 28 '13 at 12:00

Moeri

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i cant do that because its not a consol and i need to keep the whole string as its being sent as an email – Simon Patel Aug 28 '13 at 12:01
Just use string.Format and put the result in a variable or whatever you need to do with it. ;-) Console.WriteLine just happens to accept the same parameters as string.Format – Moeri Aug 28 '13 at 12:03
If it's an email, send it as html – Gonzix Aug 28 '13 at 12:04
@SimonPatel, you can do the same with a StringWriter – Thomas Levesque Aug 28 '13 at 12:08

konsolebox · Answer 3 · 2013-08-28T14:37:26.147

0

Trim your string and calculate the longest string length:

int maxLength = 0;

foreach(string s in array)
{
    l = s.Trim().Length;
    if (l > maxLength)
    {
        maxLength = l;
    }
}

foreach(string s in array)
{
    emailBody += System.Format("{0,-" + maxLength.ToString() + "}    |    Success" + Environment.NewLine, s.Trim());
}

edited Aug 28 '13 at 14:37

answered Aug 28 '13 at 12:05

konsolebox

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He wants formatting with columns, trimming won't solve his problem here – Moeri Aug 28 '13 at 13:49
@Moeri Yes I didn't consider the variation of size. I made an update. – konsolebox Aug 28 '13 at 14:38

formatting the string to look like a table

3 Answers3