How can I pad an int with leading zeros when using cout << operator?

Question

I want cout to output an int with leading zeros, so the value 1 would be printed as 001 and the value 25 printed as 025. How can I do this?

Answer 1

With the following,

#include <iomanip>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << std::setfill('0') << std::setw(5) << 25;
}

the output will be

00025

setfill is set to the space character (' ') by default. setw sets the width of the field to be printed, and that's it.

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If you are interested in knowing how the to format output streams in general, I wrote an answer for another question, hope it is useful: Formatting C++ Console Output.

Answer 2

Another way to achieve this is using old printf() function of C language

You can use this like

int dd = 1, mm = 9, yy = 1;
printf("%02d - %02d - %04d", mm, dd, yy);

This will print 09 - 01 - 0001 on the console.

You can also use another function sprintf() to write formatted output to a string like below:

int dd = 1, mm = 9, yy = 1;
char s[25];
sprintf(s, "%02d - %02d - %04d", mm, dd, yy);
cout << s;

Don't forget to include stdio.h header file in your program for both of these functions

Thing to be noted:

You can fill blank space either by 0 or by another char (not number).
If you do write something like %24d format specifier than this will not fill 2 in blank spaces. This will set pad to 24 and will fill blank spaces.

Answer 3

cout.fill('*');
cout << -12345 << endl; // print default value with no field width
cout << setw(10) << -12345 << endl; // print default with field width
cout << setw(10) << left << -12345 << endl; // print left justified
cout << setw(10) << right << -12345 << endl; // print right justified
cout << setw(10) << internal << -12345 << endl; // print internally justified

This produces the output:

-12345
****-12345
-12345****
****-12345
-****12345

Answer 4

In C++20 you can do:

std::cout << std::format("{:03}", 25); // prints 025

In the meantime you can use the {fmt} library, std::format is based on.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of {fmt} and C++20 std::format.

Answer 5

cout.fill( '0' );    
cout.width( 3 );
cout << value;

Answer 6

Another example to output date and time using zero as a fill character on instances of single digit values: 2017-06-04 18:13:02

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <ctime>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    time_t t = time(0);   // Get time now
    struct tm * now = localtime(&t);
    cout.fill('0');
    cout << (now->tm_year + 1900) << '-'
        << setw(2) << (now->tm_mon + 1) << '-'
        << setw(2) << now->tm_mday << ' '
        << setw(2) << now->tm_hour << ':'
        << setw(2) << now->tm_min << ':'
        << setw(2) << now->tm_sec
        << endl;
    return 0;
}

Answer 7

I would use the following function. I don't like sprintf; it doesn't do what I want!!

#define hexchar(x)    ((((x)&0x0F)>9)?((x)+'A'-10):((x)+'0'))
typedef signed long long   Int64;

// Special printf for numbers only
// See formatting information below.
//
//    Print the number "n" in the given "base"
//    using exactly "numDigits".
//    Print +/- if signed flag "isSigned" is TRUE.
//    Use the character specified in "padchar" to pad extra characters.
//
//    Examples:
//    sprintfNum(pszBuffer, 6, 10, 6,  TRUE, ' ',   1234);  -->  " +1234"
//    sprintfNum(pszBuffer, 6, 10, 6, FALSE, '0',   1234);  -->  "001234"
//    sprintfNum(pszBuffer, 6, 16, 6, FALSE, '.', 0x5AA5);  -->  "..5AA5"
void sprintfNum(char *pszBuffer, int size, char base, char numDigits, char isSigned, char padchar, Int64 n)
{
    char *ptr = pszBuffer;

    if (!pszBuffer)
    {
        return;
    }

    char *p, buf[32];
    unsigned long long x;
    unsigned char count;

    // Prepare negative number
    if (isSigned && (n < 0))
    {
        x = -n;
    }
    else
    {
        x = n;
    }

    // Set up small string buffer
    count = (numDigits-1) - (isSigned?1:0);
    p = buf + sizeof (buf);
    *--p = '\0';

    // Force calculation of first digit
    // (to prevent zero from not printing at all!!!)
    *--p = (char)hexchar(x%base);
    x = x / base;

    // Calculate remaining digits
    while(count--)
    {
        if(x != 0)
        {
            // Calculate next digit
            *--p = (char)hexchar(x%base);
            x /= base;
        }
        else
        {
            // No more digits left, pad out to desired length
            *--p = padchar;
        }
    }

    // Apply signed notation if requested
    if (isSigned)
    {
        if (n < 0)
        {
            *--p = '-';
        }
        else if (n > 0)
        {
            *--p = '+';
        }
        else
        {
            *--p = ' ';
        }
    }

    // Print the string right-justified
    count = numDigits;
    while (count--)
    {
        *ptr++ = *p++;
    }
    return;
}