Print Horizontal Line in Ruby

Question

Can ruby's puts or print draw horizontal line kind of like bash does with printf+tr does ?

printf '%20s\n' | tr ' ' -

this will draw:

--------------------

@Felix Wait, so you mean to tell me that you, can't just do this in ruby using the standard library? — Games Brainiac, Nov 12 '13 at 16:48
OK, I missed the point. I was referring to curses because I thought you wanted a line without "spaces". — Felix, Nov 12 '13 at 16:57

Anshul Goyal · Answer 1 · 2013-11-12T17:39:03.767

7

You can use the following snippet

puts "-"*20

Check this for more help.

You might be interested in formatting using ljust, rjust and center as well.

edited Nov 12 '13 at 17:39

answered Nov 12 '13 at 16:50

Anshul Goyal

1

Just asking, doesn't ruby have something like `"{0:^20}".format(var)` like in Python? – Games Brainiac Nov 12 '13 at 16:54
@GamesBrainiac The output of the snippet you mention is `' - '` which is not what the OP needs. But `print("-" * 20)` should work in python as well. – Anshul Goyal Nov 12 '13 at 17:00
I realize that, but if you ask something a little more specific, then you you are broke. For example, if you wanted to fill up empty spaces with `-` and you have some string to format it with, then you're stuck. In python, its easy as `"{0:-^20}".format("END OF TASK")`. – Games Brainiac Nov 12 '13 at 17:02
3

@GamesBrainiac in ruby you can do this by `"END OF TASK".ljust(20,"-")` or `rjust` depending on the side you want to fill – Yevgeniy Anfilofyev Nov 12 '13 at 17:21

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 12 '13 at 16:50

3

I use a quick puts "*"*80 for debug purposes. I'm sure there are better ways.

answered Nov 12 '13 at 16:50

MegaTux

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 12 '13 at 17:23

1

For fancy lines:

p 'MY_LINE'.center(80,'_-')
#=> "_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-MY_LINE_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_"

answered Nov 12 '13 at 17:23

hirolau

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 12 '13 at 17:31

1

You could also have the following:

puts "".center(20, "-")

irb(main):005:0> puts "".center(20, '-')
=> "--------------------"

This could be more flexible if you wanted to add additional information:

irb(main):007:0> puts "end of task".center(20, "-")
----end of task-----
=> nil

answered Nov 12 '13 at 17:31

Games Brainiac

+1 Was about to reply with the same in comments to my answer, but then saw your answer. FWIW, the link in my answer has documentation for `.center`, `.ljust` and `.rjust` as well. – Anshul Goyal Nov 12 '13 at 17:35
1

@ansh0l I researched and found it out. I got a terrible bashing from the chat room guys though :P – Games Brainiac Nov 12 '13 at 17:35

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 12 '13 at 18:18

0

puts ''.rjust(20,"-")
# >> --------------------
puts ''.ljust(20,"-")
# >> --------------------

answered Nov 12 '13 at 18:18

Arup Rakshit

5 Answers5