greywolf has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I can use sprintf() to display numbers with leading 0's but I don't want the user to see them.

I want the users to see: 
$ 60.00
$160.00
$  5.00

The $ is added in the output. I will need to sort my rows of data based on these prices.

Is there some simple way to do this? Maybe using regex to insert spaces.

mr greywolf
  • Comment on Can I pad a number with leading spaces rather than leading 0's

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Can I pad a number with leading spaces rather than leading 0's
by HyperZonk (Friar) on Aug 20, 2001 at 23:06 UTC
    The output should be right-justified (padded with spaces) automatically.

    To be more explicit: if you want the output to fit a field four spaces wide, e.g.
    $ 123.00
$  12.00
$   1.00

    [download]
    Then you would want to
    printf("\$%7.2f\n", $output);

    [download]


    -HZ
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      Oops, I missed the formatting of my results list (multiple spaces are ignored yadda yadda yadda) but you nailed it. I am looking for the all $'s to line up on the left and all the decimal places to line up on the right.

      sprintf("\$%08.2f", $price) formats the way I want to but I don't want to see the 0's.

      sprintf("\$%8.2f", $price) seems to forget about the padding up front.

      mr greywolf
[reply]
        sprintf("\$%8.2f", $price) seems to forget about the padding up front.
        Works fine for me: 
        #!perl
$price = 16.50;
$formatted = sprintf("\$%8.2f", $price);
print "Price is $price, formatted price is $formatted.\n";
__END__

Price is 16.5, formatted price is $   16.50.

        [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
        Please clarify what you mean by "seems to forget." You seem to be saying that the spaces don't appear. Hmmmm ... just a thought ... are you using this to print to a web page, i.e., in HTML? You know, extra spaces don't appear in HTML unless you surround them with pre tags or similar formatting mechanisms.

        -HZ
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Can I pad a number with leading spaces rather than leading 0's
by TheoPetersen (Priest) on Aug 20, 2001 at 23:10 UTC
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Can I pad a number with leading spaces rather than leading 0's
by blakem (Monsignor) on Aug 20, 2001 at 23:10 UTC
    I've used something like this before, in little non-production scripts: 
    for my $amount ('60.00','160.00','5') {
  print "\$", pad(dollarize($amount),6), "\n";
}

sub pad {
  my $txt = shift;
  my $num = shift || 7;
  return " " x ($num - length($txt)) . $txt;
}

sub dollarize {
  my $txt = shift;
  $txt .= '.' unless $txt =~ /\./;
  $txt .= '0' unless $txt =~ /\.\d\d/;
  $txt .= '0' unless $txt =~ /\.\d\d/;
  return $txt;
}

    [download]

    -Blake

[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Can I pad a number with leading spaces rather than leading 0's
by MZSanford (Curate) on Aug 21, 2001 at 13:40 UTC
    I think i see the problem from readin the other posts. You appear to be printing to a webpage which is not recognizing the consecutive spaces (or, atleast, not displaying them). Just for the sake of sprintf(), i should mention that , if the number before the . in the sprintf() format is positive, the number is right justified, and a negative number to the left of the . left justifies the number. so ...
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict; # every job should

my $number = 222.42;

printf("A: \$%10.2f\n",$number);
printf("B: \$%-10.2f\n",$number);

    [download]
    ... would print ... 
    %shell > perl test.pl
A: $    222.42
B: $222.42

    [download]

    If HTML : There are quite a few ways to do it, and i have even been known to use something like the following before printing. But, i am not a CGI programmer, so i am sure there are better ways. 
    sub html_space {
    my $Rstring = shift;
    $$Rstring =~ s/ / /g; 
}

    [download]
    ... and a test program ... 
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict; # every job should

my $number = 222.42;

$number = sprintf("\$%10.2f\n",$number);
&html_space(\$number);
print "A: $number\n";

sub html_space {
    my $Rstring = shift;
    $$Rstring =~ s/ / /g; 
}

    [download]
    can't sleep clawns will eat me
    -- MZSanford
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom