Tukukkk

Is There A Way To Format White-space Like This In C#?

I would like to know if you could parse string arrays into a method and get it to return you a formatted string with white-spaces, there is a specific way i need this done so here's an example:

string StringArray = new string {

    new string {"Name:", "John Jones."}

    new string {"Date of birth:", "07/11/1989."}

    new string {"Age:", "29 Years old."}

};



FormatWhiteSpace(StringArray, Padding: 5);

Output would be:

Name:              John Jones.

Date of birth:     07/11/1989.

Age:               29 Years old.

As you see above in the output everything is lined up and with 5 spaces for padding as defined when we called the method. This is exactly what we want. Also we have a 2 dimensional array because that allows us to parse in more than 1 line at once. Here's another example, this time with more than two columns:

string StringArray = new string {

    new string {"Name:", "John", "Jones."}

    new string {"Date of birth:", "Monday,", "07/11/1989."}

    new string {"Age:", "29", "Years old."}

};



FormatWhiteSpace(StringArray, Padding: 2);

Second Output would be:

Name:           John     Jones.

Date of birth:  Monday,  07/11/1989.

Age:            29       Years old.

That's all i would like to know if you know of anything that can help
me please let me know. Thanks for your help, you guys really made my
day.

Try something like this (I added an extra row to your data to make it not square and make debugging more obvious):

public static class PaddedColumns

{

    private static string _stringArray = new string {

        new  {"Name:", "John", "Jones."},

        new  {"Date of birth:", "Monday,", "07/11/1989."},

        new  {"Age:", "29", "Years old."},

        new  {"Eye Color:", "blue", ""},

    };



    public static void PadIt()

    {

        OutputPadded(_stringArray);

    }



    public static void OutputPadded(string strings)

    {

        var columnMaxes = new int[strings[0].Length];



        foreach (var row in strings)

        {

            for (var colNo = 0; colNo < row.Length; ++colNo)

            {

                if (row[colNo].Length > columnMaxes[colNo])

                {

                    columnMaxes[colNo] = row[colNo].Length;

                }

            }

        }



        const int extraPadding = 2;



        //got the maxes, now go through and use them to pad things

        foreach (var row in strings)

        {

            for (var colNo = 0; colNo < row.Length; ++colNo)

            {

                Console.Write(row[colNo].PadRight(columnMaxes[colNo] + extraPadding));

            }

            Console.WriteLine("");

        }



    }



}

The result looks like:

Name:           John     Jones.

Date of birth:  Monday,  07/11/1989.

Age:            29       Years old.

Eye Color:      blue

I personally love using Linq, also this works with any number of columns and will calculate the distance needed for each column.

void Main()

{

    string StringArray = new string {

    new  {"Name:", "John", "Jones."},

    new  {"Date of birth:", "Monday,", "07/11/1989."},

    new  {"Age:", "29", "Years old."}};



    var lines = FormatWhiteSpace(StringArray, Padding: 2);



    foreach (var line in lines)

    {

        Console.WriteLine(line);

    }

}



private IEnumerable<string> FormatWhiteSpace(string StringArray, int Padding)

{

    var maxLengthDict = StringArray

        .Select(sa => sa.Select((s, i) => new { Column = i, MaxLength = s.Length }))        

        .SelectMany(x => x)

        .GroupBy(x => x.Column)

        .Select(x => new {Column = x.Key, MaxLength = x.Max(y => y.MaxLength)})

        .ToDictionary(x => x.Column, x => x.MaxLength);



    return StringArray

        .Select(sa => string.Concat(sa.Select((s, i) => s.PadRight(maxLengthDict[i] + Padding))));

}