create a delimited text in c# with separate columns

Question

I've been trying to create a tab limited text file in c# so that the data are properly shown in separate columns.

Firstname       Lastname         Age
John            Smith            17
James           Sawyer           31

I have tried the "\t" character but all I get is this:

Firstname    Lastname    Age
John     Smith   17
James    Sawyer      31

Here is my code:

string[,] P = new string[2, 3] { 
                                    { "John", "Smith", "17" }, 
                                    { "James", "Sawyer", "31" } 
                                };

using (StreamWriter s_w = new StreamWriter(target))
{
    s_w.WriteLine("Firstname \t Lastname \t Age");

    for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
    {
        s_w.WriteLine("{0} \t {1} \t {2}", P[i,0], P[i,1], P[i,2]);
    }
}

Answer 1

You can use PadRight like this:

 s_w.WriteLine("{0} \t {1} \t {2}", 
          P[i, 0].PadRight(10, ' '), 
          P[i, 1].PadRight(10, ' '), 
          P[i, 2].PadRight(10, ' '));

Note that the last PadRight is not necessary because it's the last column.There is no need to append anything to the right.Anyway if you have more properties then you need to use that too.

Answer 2

Use string.Format and the composite formatting precision feature allows you to prepare your text in columns with the exact number of characters for each column

string[,] P = new string[2, 3] { 
                                    { "John", "Smith", "17" }, 
                                    { "James", "Sawyer", "31" } 
                                };

using (StreamWriter s_w = new StreamWriter(target))
{
    string row = string.Format("{0,-30}{1,-30}{2,10}", "Firstname", "Lastname", "Age");
    s_w.WriteLine(row);

    for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
    {
        row = string.Format("{0,-30}{1,-30}{2,10}", P[i,0], P[i,1], P[i,2]);
        s_w.WriteLine(row);
    }
}

this will align your data in three columns, the first is 30 characters wide and the text is aligned on the left, the same for the second column, while the third column is 10 characters wide and the data (age) is aligned on the right.

Of course to see an exact alignment of your column you need to look at your data using a fixed width font (Courier or Lucida Console for example) otherwise you will see disaligned columns, but this is due to the fact that in a variable width font the letter W needs more pixels in the horizontal than the letter i

Answer 3

What you are seeing is due to the way that tabs are displayed in the output. It looks correctly tab-delimited to me, it's just that the differing lengths cause the tabs to align to different tab-stops.

If this is to be viewed in a console, try using spaces for padding to pad each column to the same number of characters.

See the answers to this question for tips, but the gist is:

String.format("%10s", P[i,0]);

and so on for each of the others.

If it's actually supposed to be read as data, then leave as is, because it's correct now (although you probably want to remove the spaces in the string (i.e. "{0}\t{1}\t{2}".

Answer 4

Hi: If you absolutely need to use TAB characters (i.e., if you need to generate a file that can be easily read in Microsoft Excel, as a TAB-separated text file), then you're doing it correctly, because you're using only one TAB between every two columns. BUT, if what you want is to display the columns nicely spaced, then I suggest using spaces, instead of TAB characters. It's easier to manage. Search through all of your strings, find the widest string, assign this value plus 5, for example, and then layout your strings using that knowledge (i.e., adding as many spaces as needed to make all columns look aligned). If you need help with the code, I can post something later. But let me know, please.

Answer 5

I think you want to pad your data with spaces instead of tabs, which don't always line up:

s_w.WriteLine("Firstname           Lastname            Age");

for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
{
    s_w.WriteLine("{0,-20} \t {1,-20} \t {2}", P[i,0], P[i,1], P[i,2]);
}                     ^-- the -20 tells the formatter to left-align and pad to 20 characters

Answer 6

Selman22's answer completely did the job, here is another solution which is a little more concise:

string[,] P = new string[2, 3] { 
                                    { "John", "Smith", "17" }, 
                                    { "James", "Sawyer", "31" } 
                                };

using (StreamWriter s_w = new StreamWriter(target))
{
    s_w.WriteLine("{0,-15}  {1,-15}  {2,-15}","Firstname", "Lastname" ,"Age");

    for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
    {
        s_w.WriteLine("{0,-15}  {1,-15}  {2,-15}", P[i, 0], P[i, 1], P[i, 2]);
    }
}