Minimum Field Width

In this chapter you will learn:

How to set the minimum field width for Java Formatter
How to output formatter data for in a table

Specifying a Minimum Field Width

An integer between the % sign and the format conversion code acts as a minimum field-width specifier.

The default padding is done with spaces. If you want to pad with 0's, place a 0 before the field-width specifier. For example, %05d will pad a number of less than five digits with 0's so that its total length is five.

The field-width specifier can be used with all format specifiers except %n.

The following program demonstrates the minimum field-width specifier by applying it to the %f conversion:

The following code displays numbers in right justify format.

import java.util.Formatter;
//from  j  av a  2 s  .  co  m
public class MainClass {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt = new Formatter();
    // Right justify by default 
    fmt.format("|%10.2f|", 123.123); 
    System.out.println(fmt); 
  }
}

The output:

Produce formatted table

The minimum field-width modifier is often used to produce tables in which the columns line up.

import java.util.Formatter;
/*from   j a  v  a  2  s  .  co m*/
public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    Formatter fmt;
    for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
      fmt = new Formatter();
      fmt.format("%4d %4d %4d", i, i * i, i * i * i);
      System.out.println(fmt);
    }
  }
}