Center text in fixed-width field with stream manipulators in C++

Question

I am refactoring some legacy code which is using printf with longs strings (without any actual formatting) to print out plain text table headers which looks notionally like this:

|  Table   |  Column  | Header  |

which are currently being produced like this:

printf("|  Table   |  Column  | Header  |");

I would like to produce the above with code to the effect of¹:

outputStream << "|" << std::setw(10) << std::center << "Table"
             << "|" << std::setw(10) << std::center << "Column"
             << "|" << std::setw(9) << std::center << "Header"
             << "|" << std::endl;

which does not compile because <iomanip> has the stream manipulators std::left, std::right and std::internal, but does not seem to have any std::center. Is there a clean way to do this already in standard C++ libraries, or will I have to manually compute the necessary spacing?

---

¹_{Even though this is more verbose than the C code, it will be less verbose in the long run because of the number of printf statements and the amount of infixed duplication in their strings. It will also be more extensible and maintainable.}

Answer 1

Here's a helper class that accomplish what you want:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

template<typename charT, typename traits = std::char_traits<charT> >
class center_helper {
    std::basic_string<charT, traits> str_;
public:
    center_helper(std::basic_string<charT, traits> str) : str_(str) {}
    template<typename a, typename b>
    friend std::basic_ostream<a, b>& operator<<(std::basic_ostream<a, b>& s, const center_helper<a, b>& c);
};

template<typename charT, typename traits = std::char_traits<charT> >
center_helper<charT, traits> centered(std::basic_string<charT, traits> str) {
    return center_helper<charT, traits>(str);
}

// redeclare for std::string directly so we can support anything that implicitly converts to std::string
center_helper<std::string::value_type, std::string::traits_type> centered(const std::string& str) {
    return center_helper<std::string::value_type, std::string::traits_type>(str);
}

template<typename charT, typename traits>
std::basic_ostream<charT, traits>& operator<<(std::basic_ostream<charT, traits>& s, const center_helper<charT, traits>& c) {
    std::streamsize w = s.width();
    if (w > c.str_.length()) {
        std::streamsize left = (w + c.str_.length()) / 2;
        s.width(left);
        s << c.str_;
        s.width(w - left);
        s << "";
    } else {
        s << c.str_;
    }
    return s;
}

It's used simply by calling centered("String"), like so:

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    std::cout << "|" << std::setw(10) << centered("Table")
              << "|" << std::setw(10) << centered("Column")
              << "|" << std::setw(9)  << centered("Header") << "|"
              << std::endl;
}

Answer 2

In C++20 you'll be able to use std::format to do this:

outputStream << std::format("|{:^10}|{:^10}|{:^9}|\n",
                            "Table", "Column", "Header");

Output:

|  Table   |  Column  | Header  |

In the meantime you can use the {fmt} library, std::format is based on. {fmt} also provides the print function that makes this even easier and more efficient (godbolt):

fmt::print("|{:^10}|{:^10}|{:^9}|\n", "Table", "Column", "Header");

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

Answer 3

There is no std::center manipulator. I am afraid you have to do it yourself. You could write a helper function to calculate the spaces given the width and the string, to reduce the efforts.

Here's a sample of what a helper function might look like. It needs some work to make it more efficient, etc.

string helper(int width, const string& str) {
    int len = str.length();
    if(width < len) { return str; }

    int diff = width - len;
    int pad1 = diff/2;
    int pad2 = diff - pad1;
    return string(pad1, ' ') + str + string(pad2, ' ');
}

Answer 4

I'm afraid you'll have to do it manually. But it's not that hard if you work with strings. Something like:

std::string
centered( std::string const& original, int targetSize )
{
    assert( targetSize >= 0 );
    int padding = targetSize - checked_cast<int>( original.size() );
    return padding > 0
        ? std::string( padding / 2, ' ' ) 
            + original
            + std::string( targetSize - (padding / 2), ' ' )
        : original;
}

should do the trick.

Answer 5

This is just for the ones who don't need any additional changes in the code and not include any new libraries like me.

There are many answers given above which require new helper classes or additional libraries, but there is a simple hack instead which wont require any additional changes. You can divide the width by 2 and add the setw() method on either side of the element to be printed. As a solution to the question :

outputStream << "|" << std::setw(5) << "Table" << std::setw(5)
             << "|" << std::setw(5) << "Column" << std::setw(5)
             << "|" << std::setw(5) << "Header" << std::setw(5)
             << "|" << std::endl;

The above code will do the work.

Output:

|  Table   |  Column  | Header  |

Answer 6

you could use the NCURSES library... it's kinda funk and you have to add "-L NCURSES" to your compile command (g++ -L NCURSES yourProgram.cpp) and it'll work plus you can do colors and other 'cool' stuff [cool for CLI anyway]. just read the manual, centering stuff is pretty easy. http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/