Potentially something like this would work for you:

format STDOUT_TOP =
@<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<<
$time[0],  $time[1],  $time[2],  $time[3],
.
format STDOUT =
@<<<<<<<<< @###   @###   @###   @###
$type,     $val1, $val2, $val3, $val4
.
$~ = "STDOUT_TOP";
write;
[download]

Eric

Hi,

If you have problem with the limitations of the standard perl format you can also use Perl6::Form.

Regards,

I would be stronger on this. If you are going to use formatting functions beyond printf(), use Perl6::Form. Those who are learning this area should not learn "format"; "format" will force them to learn many idiosyncracies that they will then have to un-learn when "form" becomes the standard in perl6. It will also generate code that fewer and fewer people understatnd over the years. Perl6::Form is no harder to learn. In many ways it's easier to learn if you're doing simple things, and it leaves you with more flexibility in your code, since formatting is not tied to the action of sending output.

I intend no disrespect to "format". It was a valuable feature which has served my software well. The new "form" has learned from it and brought us a much cleaner implementation. We should use it for any new collection of formatting code, and we should direct those who are new to the area to it, so they don't lean something that will soon be fading.

Addendum: I can think of two reasons why you might want to continue to use the Perl5 "format" in writing new code:

• To maintain consistency with a large body of code that already uses "format".
• For small things that must run in and environment where it's difficult to install modules like Perl6::Format.

                02:17   02:40   02:46   02:59
 Apples             0       0       0       0
 Grapes             7       7       7       7
 bricks             0       0       0       0
 TUBELIGHS        282     271     265     257

 TOTAL            289     278     272     264
[download]

If you want to do this using good ol' printf, which nobody has suggested (but was part of your original post), here is how I would do it:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# Strict
use strict;
use warnings;

# Assign variables
my $plabels   = [ '02:17', '02:40', '02:46', '02:59' ];
my $pcounts = {
    'Apples'    => [ 0, 0, 0, 0, ],
    'Grapes'    => [ 7, 7, 7, 7, ],
    'bricks'    => [ 0, 0, 0, 0, ],
    'TUBELIGHS' => [ 282, 271, 265, 257, ],
};
my $p_ordered = [ qw( Apples Grapes bricks TUBELIGHS ) ];
my $ncols     = 4;  # Or $ncols = scalar @{$pcounts->{$p_ordered->[0]}
+};

# Calculate totals
my $pTOTAL = [ ];
foreach my $key (keys %$pcounts) {
    map { $pTOTAL->[$_] += $pcounts->{$key}->[$_] } (0..$ncols-1);
}

# Main program
print_row("", $plabels, " %7.7s");
map { print_row($_, $pcounts->{$_}, " %7d") } @$p_ordered;
print "\n";
print_row("TOTAL", $pTOTAL, " %7d");


# Subroutines
sub print_row {
    my ($label, $pvalues, $format) = @_;
    printf " %-12.12s", $label;
    map { printf $format, $_ } @$pvalues;
    print "\n";
}
[download]

Note that by using a subroutine print_row, you achieve a couple of things.  First, it greatly simplifies the main program down to just several lines.  And secondly, it lets you change the width of each item in the output, just by changing the format passed to the subroutine (eg. change " %7.7s" to " %-7.7s" to left-justify the labels, or change " %7.7s" and " %7d" to " %8.8s" and " %8d" respectively, to increase the width of each item to 8 characters).

PS. What the heck is a "TUBELIGH"? :)

It looks like the format of your data in the final section "How can I correct the code so that my output is clean" is still fairly garbled. I'll assume that you wanted things lined up like:

If you download the code and view it with tab width 8, it will show up correctly. It doesn't in the node as perlmonks has a simpler idea about displaying tab characterss in code tags than is required here.

How about posting something that can actually be run to generate the table you show. I started out trying to infer what the various variables contain and what type they were, but gave up after not being able to reconcile sort keys %date and $i <= $#date.

This line:

print " " x ($lenght_date), $count{$_}->{$date[$i]};
[download]

Should be using printf, i.e. something like:

printf "%${lenght_date}s   ", $count{$_}->{$date[$i]};
[download]

Similarly,

print map { sprintf "%7d", $_ } @tasks;
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Should be written as:

print map { sprintf "%${lenght_date}s   " } @tasks;
[download]

In other words, use the same formatting technique, with the same widths, for every row of the output.