How can I use the \t [tab] operator to format a NSString in columns?

Question

I would like to find a way to format a NSString like this:

Name:               John
Location:           Unknown
Type:               Unknown
Status:             Unknown

Right now I'm using this code to do it but the result is quite different:

The code:

serializedValue = [serializedValue stringByAppendingFormat:@"%@:\t\t%@\n",title, value];

Where title is the left column and value is the second one.

The result:

Name:       John
Location:       Unknown
Type:       Unknown
Status:     Unknown

Now, as you can see, adding always a constant number of tabs (\t), 2 in my case, doesn't do the trick, because some words in the left column are longer and some are shorter. I'm wondering if there is a simple way to do this that I'm not aware of.

Answer 1

NSString *titleColumn = [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@:", title] stringByPaddingToLength:20 withString:@" " startingAtIndex:0];
serializedValue = [serializedValue stringByAppendingFormat:@"%@%@", titleColumn, value];

Btw, it would be more efficient to use an NSMutableString for serializedValue.