Building a string that starts with a number and the second part of the string is to have a common indent

Question

I'm building a value to display in a dropdown Select box. This value consists of a currency value, then a username. What I would like is that the usernames all start with the same indent.

Ex (what I have currently):

$1,000  UserA
$100  UserB
$10  UserC

What I would like:

$1,000  UserA
$100    UserB
$10     UserC

or even better:

$1,000  UserA
  $100  UserB
   $10  UserC

As I see the third list as the most readable.

Is there an easy way to do this without writing a function where I examine the max length, and then format it manually or a "cheat" to accomplish this?

Edit: How I generate the ViewModel items (what I pass to my Webpage)

    public ActionResult SearchCollections()
    {
        SearchCollectionGridViewModel scgvm = new SearchCollectionGridViewModel();

        var UserNamesWithValues = (from ud in db.userdetails  //build the dataset to pass to the View
                                   join usr in db.my_aspnet_users on ud.IdUsers equals usr.id                                       
                                   select new { 
                                       UserName = usr.name, 
                                       TradeCollectionValue = ud.TradeCollectionValue,
                                       NumberOfTrades = ud.NumberOfTrades,
                                       DollarValueTraded = ud.TradeValue
                                        }).ToList();

        scgvm.TradeCollectionValues = (from c in UserNamesWithValues
                                       where c.TradeCollectionValue > 0
                                       orderby c.TradeCollectionValue descending
                                       select new SelectListItem
                                       {
                                           Text = String.Format("{0,5} {1}", c.TradeCollectionValue, c.UserName).Replace(" ", "\xA0"),
                                           Value = c.UserName
                                       }).ToList();

         return View(scgvm);
     }

Edit #2: Answer found /figured out

I used the answer below plus the following two links to generate a string that was accurate in the Selectbox: (Monospace font will be a key as well)

Answer 1

Answer 2

normally we have to insert some `tab` characters, however this will work only if we use `fixed-size` font. — King King, Sep 14 '13 at 00:43
@KingKing As this is a Web App I'm not sure I can completely control that requirement. — Mark, Sep 14 '13 at 00:44
@DanielA.White It is MVC 4 so it's a Razor Helper Function that I populate via the View Model, Ex: `@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.DollarValueTraded, Model.DollarValueTraded, "Dollar Value Traded...", new { @class = "DropDownLists"})` — Mark, Sep 14 '13 at 00:47
@Mark if you deal with web, you should use `Table` layout, it's right for this purpose. — King King, Sep 14 '13 at 00:49
@KingKing This isn't a CSS layout issue, but a string formatting issue, (unless I'm way out to lunch) where I want the values inside the Select box to be as indicated in the 2nd and 3rd example above. Going to test Jan's solution. — Mark, Sep 14 '13 at 00:51
@Mark `table layout` is not part of `CSS`, it's `HTML` stuff. All the layout related to `alignment` should use `Table layout`. — King King, Sep 14 '13 at 00:52

Jan Van Herck · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-14T00:53:30.900

1

String.Format("{0,5} {1}", money, username)

Or, HTML-encoded,

Replace(String.Format("{0,5} {1}", money, username), " ", "&nbsp;")

So in MVC4 it would look "somewhat like" this:

@Html.Raw(
    Replace(
        String.Format(
            "{0,5} {1}",
            money,
            HttpServerUtility.HtmlEncode(username)
        ),
        " ",
        "&nbsp;"
    )
)

(make sure to set the font to something monospaced)

edited Sep 14 '13 at 00:53

answered Sep 14 '13 at 00:45

Jan Van Herck

2,254
17
15

How would I generate such a format when I am building the string on the controller (server side). See the edit above. – Mark Sep 14 '13 at 01:13
Figured it out with a bit of help from a couple of other SO answers, thanks for your help :) – Mark Sep 14 '13 at 01:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 14 '13 at 00:43

0

Why don't you use a tab with \t?

answered Sep 14 '13 at 00:43

Daniel A. White

187,200
47
362
445

See my answer to KingKing – Mark Sep 14 '13 at 00:44

Building a string that starts with a number and the second part of the string is to have a common indent

2 Answers2