C++ and table format printing

Question

I am looking for how to print in C++ so that table column width is fixed. currently I have done using spaces and | and -, but as soon as number goes to double digit all the alignment goes bad.

|---------|------------|-----------|
| NODE    |   ORDER    |   PARENT  |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  0      |     0      |           |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  1      |     7      |     7     |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  2      |     1      |     0     |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  3      |     5      |     5     |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  4      |     3      |     6     |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  5      |     4      |     4     |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  6      |     2      |     2     |
|---------|------------|-----------|
|  7      |     6      |     4     |
|---------|------------|-----------|

Answer 1

You can use the std::setw manipulator for cout.

There's also a std::setfill to specify the filler, but it defaults to spaces.

If you want to center the values, you'll have to do a bit of calculations. I'd suggest right aligning the values because they are numbers (and it's easier).

cout << '|' << setw(10) << value << '|' setw(10) << value2 << '|' << endl;

Don't forget to include <iomanip>.

It wouldn't be much trouble to wrap this into a general table formatter function, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader :)

Answer 2

You can use the beautiful printf(). I find it easier & nicer for formatting than cout.

Examples:

int main()
{
    printf ("Right align: %7d:)\n", 5);
    printf ("Left align : %-7d:)\n", 5);

    return 0;
}