Re: Formating a printf statement using a variable

I just love this place. I had a simliar issue and bam here is the answer on the search.

A differnt version of the question involved displaying columnized data.

If a word was larger then a certain size then I needed differnt columns and a print size. Using the offered method:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $fmt = "%-$print_size" . "s";
printf("$fmt","$_");
[download]

Thanks again and though it is late ++all

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Re^2: Formating a printf statement using a variable by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jan 11, 2003 at 17:59 UTC
Why not simply so? `printf "%-${print_size}s", $_;` Also note the lack of quotes around `$_` - if you just refer to a variable by itself, don't interpolate it. There are cases where you need to do that, but you'll know them when you come across them. Most of the time it's just a wasted node in the optree and can even break code that would work fine without the quotes. HTH Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re^2: Formating a printf statement using a variable by Marza (Vicar) on Jan 12, 2003 at 00:06 UTC
Even better! Thank you! One less line and variable! I didn't know you could do that! ;-)	[reply]
Re^4: Formating a printf statement using a variable by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jan 12, 2003 at 00:19 UTC
Yep, very handy when you have something like `my $type = $cond ? 'book' : 'module';` and want to print "books" or "modules": `print "${type}s";`. The straightforward `print "$types";` will have strict complaining about an unknown `$types`.. although the curlies are very ugly extra linenoise, so in some cases (like this one) I'd prefer to say `print $type . 's';` instead. But as with everything Perl: TMTOWTDI. `:)` Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]