changing the spacing in a string?

[David Ainley]

Hey guys. I have an array full of strings. When I put the strings, it
looks like this http://pastebin.com/eeicUCqL which is okay, but it looks
a little sloppy to me. Is there a way I can get the strings to
dynamically space themselves so that they look evenly spaced? ala
http://pastebin.com/cRcG97sK ? Should I split each string into it's
separate parts, and then print them via format? Or something...?

 

[Ben Bleything]

Hey guys. =A0I have an array full of strings. =A0When I put the strings, = it
looks like this http://pastebin.com/eeicUCqL which is okay, but it looks
a little sloppy to me. =A0Is there a way I can get the strings to
dynamically space themselves so that they look evenly spaced? ala
http://pastebin.com/cRcG97sK ? =A0Should I split each string into it's
separate parts, and then print them via format? =A0Or something...?

You've got a few options, depending on how sophisticated you want to
get. Based on that small sample, it looks like the easiest thing to
do might be to replace runs of multiple spaces with a single tab.
Something like:

str.gsub( /\s+/, "\t" )

Otherwise, you could definitely split it on spaces and print using
#printf and a carefully-crafted format string.

Ben

 

[David Ainley]

You've got a few options, depending on how sophisticated you want to
get. Based on that small sample, it looks like the easiest thing to
do might be to replace runs of multiple spaces with a single tab.
Something like:

str.gsub( /\s+/, "\t" )

Otherwise, you could definitely split it on spaces and print using
#printf and a carefully-crafted format string.

Ben

Thanks for the response! It seems to be working, except for the two
packages that deal with AlexanderHungenberg. With one tab, his name is
too long for the date to be formatted correctly (
http://pastebin.com/g8gEcvhJ ). I thought that having two tabs instead
of one might fix the problemm but then the date is still jutted out (
http://pastebin.com/CB13TZ6E ). This isn't that massive of a problem
(Alexander just has a unconditionally long username), but, anyways, any
ideas?

 

[Josh Cheek]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Hey guys. I have an array full of strings. When I put the strings, it
looks like this http://pastebin.com/eeicUCqL which is okay, but it looks
a little sloppy to me. Is there a way I can get the strings to
dynamically space themselves so that they look evenly spaced? ala
http://pastebin.com/cRcG97sK ? Should I split each string into it's
separate parts, and then print them via format? Or something...?

# counts the length of each string based on column
# returns the max for each column across all rows
def get_widths(array_of_arrays_of_strings)
widths = Array.new
array_of_arrays_of_strings.each do |strings|
strings.each_with_index do |string,index|
widths[index] = string.length if !widths[index] || widths[index] <
string.length
end
end
widths
end


# the data itself -- you haven't show what format it is in, this is just a
guess
data = [
'gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-05)',
'gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa6 TomVetterlein (2009-05-15)' ,
'gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-13)',
'gm-notify 0.9+r39-1~ppa1 SeanStoops (2009-12-22)' ,
'gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa7 NikolaKovacs (2009-09-27)' ,
'gm-notify 0.8-0ppa2 TomVetterlein (2009-04-27)' ,
]

# split the strings on whitespace so they are now arrays of strings
data.map!(&:split)

# get an array of max widths for each row
widths = get_widths data # => [9, 14, 19, 12]

# turn the widths into a format string (contains the spacing information)
format = widths.map { |width| "%-#{width}s" }.join(' ')
format # => "%-9s %-14s %-19s %-12s"

# format and output the strings
data.each { |strings| puts format % strings }
# >> gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-05)
# >> gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa6 TomVetterlein (2009-05-15)
# >> gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-13)
# >> gm-notify 0.9+r39-1~ppa1 SeanStoops (2009-12-22)
# >> gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa7 NikolaKovacs (2009-09-27)
# >> gm-notify 0.8-0ppa2 TomVetterlein (2009-04-27)

 

[brabuhr]

Hey guys. =A0I have an array full of strings. =A0When I put the strings, = it
looks like this http://pastebin.com/eeicUCqL which is okay, but it looks
a little sloppy to me. =A0Is there a way I can get the strings to
dynamically space themselves so that they look evenly spaced? ala
http://pastebin.com/cRcG97sK ? =A0Should I split each string into it's
separate parts, and then print them via format? =A0Or something...?

And for a different approach

/tmp> cat i.rb
str =3D Array.new
str << "gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-05)"
str << "gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa6 TomVetterlein (2009-05-15)"
str << "gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-13)"
str << "gm-notify 0.9+r39-1~ppa1 SeanStoops (2009-12-22)"
str << "gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa7 NikolaKovacs (2009-09-27)"
str << "gm-notify 0.8-0ppa2 TomVetterlein (2009-04-27)"

x =3D IO.popen("column -t", "w+"){|p|
p.puts str.join("\n")
p.close_write
p.read
}

puts x

/tmp> ruby i.rb
gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-05)
gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa6 TomVetterlein (2009-05-15)
gm-notify 0.10.2-1~ppa1 AlexanderHungenberg (2010-05-13)
gm-notify 0.9+r39-1~ppa1 SeanStoops (2009-12-22)
gm-notify 0.9-0~ppa7 NikolaKovacs (2009-09-27)
gm-notify 0.8-0ppa2 TomVetterlein (2009-04-27)