Left aligning text in print statements

Question

I have a list of keys and values and I would like to print them so the values are left aligned with one another. So for instance if my map is: {(key9, val9), (key10, val10)} I want to print it as:

key9:  val9
key10: val10

My current solution is pretty ugly:

int maxKeyLength = findMaxKeyLength(myMap);
for (String key : myMap.keySet()) {
  int numSpaces = maxKeyLength - key.size() + 1;
  // TODO: use StringBuilder instead.
  String toPrint = key + ":";
  for (int i = 0;i < numSpaces;++i) {
    toPrint += " ";
  }
  toPrint += myMap.get(key);
  print(toPrint);
}

This works but is a bit ugly. My question is, is there any better way to do this?

It works as I said, but there's gotta to be a better solution that doesn't require nested for loops and 10 lines of code. Maybe some magic escape character or library function. — Benjy Kessler, Jul 23 '15 at 13:45
@BenjyKessler to avoid nested loops and make your code look simplier you may create `align` function and use it, but that can't be helped much. — Dmitry Ginzburg, Jul 23 '15 at 13:46
The answer I linked should do the trick with the `printf` method. — npinti, Jul 23 '15 at 13:47
The question, my question is a duplicate of is what I was looking for. I knew there had to be some printf magic that would work. — Benjy Kessler, Jul 23 '15 at 13:47

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 23 '15 at 13:49

0

You could try formatted strings, like so

for (String key : myMap.keySet()) {
   System.out.printf( "%-9s %-15s %n", key+":", myMap.get(key));
}

reference

answered Jul 23 '15 at 13:49

depperm

10,606
4
43
67

Left aligning text in print statements

1 Answers1