Line up text output in C++

Question

So i have a program that reads from a text file and outputs to another text file. Here is the file text (format included) that it reads:

Duckey Donald 85
Goof Goofy 89
Brave Balto 93
Snow Smitn 93
Alice Wonderful 89
Samina Akthar 85
Simba Green 95
Donald Egger 90
Brown Deer 86
Johny Jackson 95
Greg Gupta 75
Samuel Happy 80
Danny Arora 80
Sleepy June 70
Amy Cheng 83
Shelly Malik 95
Chelsea Tomek 95
Angela Clodfelter 95
Allison Nields 95
Lance Norman 88

In the program it adds each of these to a struct within an array; it then calculates the grade and prints.

cout << "Student Name           Test Score  Grade" << endl;
for (int studentNumber = 0; studentNumber < STUDENT_NUMBER; studentNumber++){
    cout << students[studentNumber].studentLName << ", "
         << students[studentNumber].studentFName << "           "
         << students[studentNumber].testScore << "      "
         << students[studentNumber].grade << endl;
}

The desired output looks like this:

Student Name           Test Score  Grade
Donald, Duckey               85      B
Goofy, Goof                  89      B
Balto, Brave                 93      A
Smitn, Snow                  93      A
Wonderful, Alice             89      B
Akthar, Samina               85      B
Green, Simba                 95      A
Egger, Donald                90      A
Deer, Brown                  86      B
Jackson, Johny               95      A
Gupta, Greg                  75      C
Happy, Samuel                80      B
Arora, Danny                 80      B
June, Sleepy                 70      C
Cheng, Amy                   83      B
Malik, Shelly                95      A
Tomek, Chelsea               95      A
Clodfelter, Angela           95      A
Nields, Allison              95      A
Norman, Lance                88      B

Highest Test Score: 95
Students having the highest test score:
Green,  Simba
Jackson,  Johny
Malik,  Shelly
Tomek,  Chelsea
Clodfelter,  Angela
Nields,  Allison

So basically my question is this... is there any way for the test score column integers to line up like they do in my above desired output?

SOLUTION

int colWidth = 20;
    for (int studentNumber = 0; studentNumber < STUDENT_NUMBER; studentNumber++){

    string s = students[studentNumber].studentFName  + ", " + students[studentNumber].studentLName;
    int size = s.size();
         cout <<  s << std::string(colWidth - size, ' ')
         << students[studentNumber].testScore << "    "
         <<

Answer 1

You can pad the string manually with spaces like so:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::string first("John");
    std::string last("Smith");
    std::string full = last + ", " + first;
    int colWidth = 20;

    std::cout << "12345678901234567890\n"
              << full << std::string(colWidth - full.size(), ' ')
              << "aligned after 20 characters\n";

    return 0;
}

Outputs:

12345678901234567890
Smith, John         aligned after 20 characters

This will work for left justifying your text, given you calculate the number of characters you print.

For right-justifying, std::setw from <iomanip> works well. Unlike other stream manipulators, std::setw is not sticky, so it will only modify your next immediate output.

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

int main()
{
    std::string s("ABCDE");
    int colWidth = 20;

    std::cout << "12345678901234567890\n";
    std::cout << std::setw(colWidth) << s << "\n";

    return 0;
}

Prints

12345678901234567890
               ABCDE

Putting it all together, I would left justify the first column, and right justify the second and third columns.

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

int main()
{
    std::string first("John");
    std::string last("Smith");
    std::string full = last + ", " + first;
    int score = 100;
    std::string grade("A");

    std::cout << "123456789012345678901234512345\n"
              << full << std::string(20 - full.size(), ' ')
              << std::setw(5) << score
              << std::setw(5) << grade << "\n";

    return 0;
}

Prints:

123456789012345678901234512345
Smith, John           100    A

Answer 2

You can change your code like this:

#include <iomanip>
cout << "Student Name           Test Score  Grade" << endl;
for (int studentNumber = 0; studentNumber < STUDENT_NUMBER; studentNumber++){
    cout << setiosflags(ios::left) << setw(29) << setfill(' ') 
        << students[studentNumber].studentLName + ", " + students[studentNumber].studentFName 
        << setw(8) << students[studentNumber].testScore 
        << students[studentNumber].grade << endl;
}

where 29 and 8 are calculated based on your disired output format, you can change it as you needs.