Re: Format, empty vars, and fixed-width records

I also tried using sprintf, but if the data is longer than intended, the line becomes too long.

You do know you can specify the maximum width?

printf "%2.2s>%32.32s<\n", 
    $_, 'x' x $_ for 30 .. 34, 99..101;;
30>  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
31> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
32>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
33>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
34>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
99>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
10>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
10>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<
[download]

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

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Re^2: Format, empty vars, and fixed-width records by kwaping (Priest) on Apr 21, 2008 at 23:40 UTC
Thank you for mentioning that, as I did not know about that detail. However, after reading the perldoc on it, I don't believe that will limit the lengths of my numeric fields, which may be a problem. --- It's all fine and dandy until someone has to look at the code.	[reply]
Re^3: Format, empty vars, and fixed-width records by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Apr 22, 2008 at 00:14 UTC
As I showed with the decimal field at the beginning of the records above, you can truncate integer fields by using `%N.Ns`. Unfortunately, the truncation always occurs on the right regardless of whether you use '-' or not: `[0] Perl> printf "%2.2s\n", $_ for 9, 99 .. 101;; 9 99 10 10 [0] Perl> printf "%-2.2s\n", $_ for 9, 99 .. 101;; 9 99 10 10` [download] Which may not be what you want. The real problem (sic) is floating point numbers, there's just no sensible way to squeeze them into a fixed width field if they stray beyond a limited range: `printf "%-8.8s\n", sprintf '%8f', $_ for map{ 1.23456789 * $_} map{ "1e$_" } -10 .. 10;; 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000001 0.000012 0.000123 0.001235 0.012346 0.123457 1.234568 12.34567 123.4567 1234.567 12345.67 123456.7 1234567. 12345678 12345678 12345678 12345678` [download] And its worse if you want or need to maintain point alignment. Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. "Too many [] have been sedated by an oppressive environment of political correctness and risk aversion."	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Format, empty vars, and fixed-width records by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 22, 2008 at 02:56 UTC
You could handle number overflow like Excel does: `sub format_num { my $s = sprintf('%5.2f', $_[0]); return length($s) > 5 ? 'XXXXX' : $s; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: Format, empty vars, and fixed-width records by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Apr 22, 2008 at 03:32 UTC


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