Print a formatted string

Question

The code is:

public static void main(String[] args) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        String str = "<html>" +
                "           <head>" +
                "               <title>" +
                "                   %s" +
                "               </title>" +
                "           </head>" +
                "           <body>" +
                "               %s" +
                "           </body>" +
                "   </html>";
        String str1 = String.format(str, "Home","Hallo");
        System.out.println(str1);
    }

I want to print the str1 as follows

//The str1 should need to print like this


           <html>           
                <head>              
                    <title>                 
                        Home                
                    </title>        
                </head>     
                <body>              
                    Hallo           
                </body>
            </html>

Is this possible?

A perfect duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3695230/how-to-use-java-string-format — AurA, Aug 27 '13 at 06:56
Yes it is possible, just add a new line character `\n` at the end of every String. — A4L, Aug 27 '13 at 06:56
Consider the str is a large html ; whether any method than that of adding \n — Rakesh KR, Aug 27 '13 at 07:07
Can you add `\t` and `\n` in the input string (`str`) or do you need them to be generated automatically? — Arnaud Denoyelle, Aug 27 '13 at 07:11
He meant adding `\t` and `\n` to each part of the string. For example `\n\t\n\t\t...` — Arnaud Denoyelle, Aug 27 '13 at 07:16
@ArnaudDenoyelle Manually it is possible if the string is a large one what i do??? — Rakesh KR, Aug 27 '13 at 07:18
Look at Theolodos' answer. He did exactly what I meant. If the file is large you can still add them with some piece of code (add `\n` after each character `>`, or use `String#replaceAll(">", ">\n"))`. — Arnaud Denoyelle, Aug 27 '13 at 07:20
possible duplicate of [How do I compare strings in Java?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/513832/how-do-i-compare-strings-in-java) — Adam Arold, Aug 27 '13 at 10:24

Theolodis · Answer 1 · 2013-08-27T07:03:28.347

String str = "<html>\n" +
"           <head>\n" +
"               <title>\n" +
"                   %s\n" +
"               </title>\n" +
"           </head>\n" +
"           <body>\n" +
"               %s\n" +
"           </body>\n" +
"   </html>\n";

this is what you want... if you are on windows, you might need to add an addiotional \r after the \n.

\n is called the newline character, \ris called carriage return. The \n is the standard newline character on unix and windows, but some programs under windows might need the carriage return dto display your string properly.

System.getProperty("line.separator"); will return \n on unix and \n\r on windows, it simply returns the standard "line separator" of the operating system this command is executed on.

Or rather use `System.getProperty("line.separator");` – Narendra Pathai Aug 27 '13 at 07:00 — Narendra Pathai, Aug 27 '13 at 07:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 27 '13 at 07:48

If you want to avoid adding \n all over the place in big HTML string manually then you can use OutputFormat.createPrettyPrint() in dom4j package:

public String prettyHTMLPrint (String html) {  
    if (html==null || html.isEmpty()) {
        throw new RuntimeException("xml null or blank in prettyHTMLPrint()");
    }
    StringWriter sw;
    try {
        OutputFormat format = OutputFormat.createPrettyPrint();
        format.setSuppressDeclaration(true);
        org.dom4j.Document document = DocumentHelper.parseText(html);
        sw = new StringWriter();
        XMLWriter writer = new XMLWriter(sw, format);
        writer.write(document);
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
        throw new RuntimeException("Error pretty printing html: " + e, e);
    }
    return sw.toString();
}

For your example it prints this formatter HTML:

<html> 
  <head> 
    <title>Home</title> 
  </head>  
  <body>Hello</body> 
</html>

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 27 '13 at 07:06

If you want to set the 2 Values hardcoded, you can use this:

    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    final String SEPARATOR = "\r\n";
    builder.append("<html>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           <head>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("               <title>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("                   ").append("Home").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("               </title>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           </head>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           <body>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("               ").append("Hallo").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           </body>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("   </html>").append(SEPARATOR);

The dynamic way could be sth. like this:

    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    final String SEPARATOR = "\r\n";
    builder.append("<html>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           <head>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("               <title>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("                   %s1").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("               </title>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           </head>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           <body>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("               %s2").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("           </body>").append(SEPARATOR);
    builder.append("   </html>").append(SEPARATOR);

    String str = builder.toString().replace("%s1", "Home").replace("%s2", "Hallo");

Print a formatted string

3 Answers3