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For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))
Dynamically formatting your results (Lua)

Scenario: You're producing a short (text) table of results and you want to keep it reasonably small - not a great deal of white space, but the data in some of your columns differs dramatically from one set of results to another. How can you do it?

Discussion: You can use your traditional "printf" type formatting in C, Perl, PHP, Python (via the % operator), Lua (string.format) and Tcl (string format) to give each field a width, but you'll need to ensure that the fields are wide enough to take the data to be placed in them every time, or accept occasional spillages when the data "busts its bank".

Solution: Parse the data for the report before you print anything out at all, and calculate the maximum width for each field for the current report. Then make up your own dynamic formatting string for use just on this occaasion. Here's an example of what I mean:

oak = {"beer","beer","beer","beer","beer","legs",
  "spilled spaghetti sauce","top","draw",
  "spit","polish","secret"}
table.sort(oak)
 
-- ====================================
 
syze = #oak[1]
for k=2,#oak do
  if syze < #oak[k] then syze = #oak[k] end
end
 
clen = #(string.format("%d",#oak));
using = "%"..clen.."d %"..syze.."s"
print ("Output format: " .. using)
 
for k,v in ipairs(oak) do
  print (string.format(using,k,v))
  end
-- ====================================


And the result:

Output format: %2d %23s
1 beer
2 beer
3 beer
4 beer
5 beer
6 draw
7 legs
8 polish
9 secret
10 spilled spaghetti sauce
11 spit
12 top


Notes: 1. If the question had been asked for web use, I would have used a browser and a table in my html to do the dynamic formatting

2. The code in the ========== section should be saved as a function for re-use later
(written 2009-11-10, updated 2009-11-11)

 
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
U104 - Lua - Strings and the String library.
  [1744] Lua examples, Lua Courses - (2008-08-08)
  [2348] Finding literals rather than patterns in Lua - (2009-08-11)
  [2357] Checking if the user has entered a number (Lua) - (2009-08-13)
  [4274] String formatting in Lua - string.format as a wrapper for sprintf - (2014-05-07)


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