[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Using Plain print & println ] [ Fixing Some Problems ] [ Width, Spacing & Justification ]

So where are we?  So far, we have:

|ID|Name|Address|Date of Birth|Salary|
|0001|Bloggs, Fred|10 Firebird Crescent|1976-05-20|$40,000.00|
|0002|Charles, Cheryl|5 Lattice Lane|1989-04-03|$50,000.00|
|0003|Romney, Titus|42 St. Martins Rd.|1973-11-19|$45,000.00|
|0004|Clinton, Burton|567 Nebula Circle|1964-01-29|$100,000.00|
|0005|McDuff, Hazel|1 Church Row|1985-03-06|$55,000.00|
|0006|Frazier, Bill|92 S. Main St.|1980-12-05|$70,000.00|
|0007|Zambroski, Heather|589 Trumpington Place|1959-04-03|$50,000.00|

Let's finally fix those spacing and alignment problems.

Here are my final changes:

package inputOutput;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * Class to produce a table of information about customers
 */
public class EmployeeTablePrinter3
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    List<Employee3> employees = new ArrayList<Employee3>();
    
    // Populate list with Employees
    employees.add( new Employee3(1, "Bloggs, Fred", "10 Firebird Crescent", 
                                new Date(1976 - 1900, 5 - 1, 20), 40000.00 ) );
    employees.add( new Employee3(2, "Charles, Cheryl", "5 Lattice Lane",
                                new Date(1989 - 1900, 4 - 1, 3), 50000.00 ) );
    employees.add( new Employee3(3, "Romney, Titus", "42 St. Martins Rd.",
                                new Date(1973 - 1900, 11 - 1, 19), 45000.00 ) );
    employees.add( new Employee3(4, "Clinton, Burton", "567 Nebula Circle",
                                new Date(1964 - 1900, 1 - 1, 29), 100000.00 ) );
    employees.add( new Employee3(5, "McDuff, Hazel", "1 Church Row",
                                new Date(1985 - 1900, 3 - 1, 6), 55000.00 ) );
    employees.add( new Employee3(6, "Frazier, Bill", "92 S. Main St.",
                                new Date(1980 - 1900, 12 - 1, 5), 70000.00 ) );
    employees.add( new Employee3(7, "Zambroski, Heather", "589 Trumpington Place",
                                new Date(1959 - 1900, 4 - 1, 3), 50000.00 ) );
    
    // Print out the table of employees
    Employee3.printHeader();
    for (Employee3 emp : employees)
    {
      emp.print();
    }
  }
}

/**
 * Class to represent an employee
 */
class Employee3
{
  Employee3(int id, String name, String address, Date dob, double salary)
  {
    m_id = id;
    m_name = name;
    m_address = address;
    m_dob = dob;
    m_salary = salary;
  }
  
  static void printHeader()
  {
    System.out.println(ROW_SEPARATOR);
    System.out.printf("| %-4s | %-20s | %-25s | %-14s | %-13s |\n",
                      "ID", "Name", "Address", "Date of Birth", "Salary");
    System.out.println(ROW_SEPARATOR);
  }
  
  void print()
  {
    System.out.printf("| %04d | %-20s | %-25s | %-14tF | $%,12.2f |\n", 
                      m_id, m_name, m_address, m_dob, m_salary);
    System.out.println(ROW_SEPARATOR);
  }
  
  private int     m_id;
  private String  m_name;
  private String  m_address;
  private Date    m_dob;
  private double  m_salary;
  
  static private String ROW_SEPARATOR = 
 "+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+";
}

which produces the following output:

+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| ID   | Name                 | Address                   | Date of Birth  | Salary        |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0001 | Bloggs, Fred         | 10 Firebird Crescent      | 1976-05-20     | $   40,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0002 | Charles, Cheryl      | 5 Lattice Lane            | 1989-04-03     | $   50,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0003 | Romney, Titus        | 42 St. Martins Rd.        | 1973-11-19     | $   45,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0004 | Clinton, Burton      | 567 Nebula Circle         | 1964-01-29     | $  100,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0005 | McDuff, Hazel        | 1 Church Row              | 1985-03-06     | $   55,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0006 | Frazier, Bill        | 92 S. Main St.            | 1980-12-05     | $   70,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+
| 0007 | Zambroski, Heather   | 589 Trumpington Place     | 1959-04-03     | $   50,000.00 |
+------+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------+---------------+

While far from ideal, it certainly beats our original, crude attempt!

Notes:

• I added a single space on either side of the data item to prevent it from being forced up against the column separator.
• I set minimum widths for the fields, to allow each column to be a standard width, including the header.
• I forced left alignment on all the header items, the names, addresses and dates of birth.  The default alignment is right aligned, and that is most natural for the salary column, where you want the decimal points to align correctly.  
• Note however, that right alignment causes a slight problem with the salary format: it causes the dollar sign to be separated from the amount.  If you wanted to cause the dollar sign to be right up against the amount, then we could do that, but we'd have to do two levels of formatting.