PHP formatting a text file

Question

How can I format a text file that the content looks like this:

Col 1     Col 2     Col 3    ...
abcd      ab        a
ab        a         abcd

Each string have a different length.

The output I have reached with my PHP code looks quite ugly:

Col 1     Col 2     Col 3    ...
abc   abc   abc
abc      abc        abc

My PHP code to create the text file follows:

$tab = "\t\t";
$txtString = "";
foreach ($teams->get() as $team) {
    $class = $classes->getClasses($team["class_id"]);
    $club = $clubs->get($team["club_number"]);
    $txtString .= $class[0]["class_name"] . $tab;
    $txtString .= $team["club_number"] . " " . $club[0]["name"] . $team["team_number"] . $tab;
    $txtString .= $team["team_leader_name"] . $tab;
    $txtString .= $team["team_leader_street"] . $tab;
    $txtString .= $team["team_leader_place"] . $tab;
    $txtString .= $team["team_leader_phone"] . "\n";
}

$file = "Mannschaftsfuehrer.txt";
file_put_contents($file, $txtString);

Can anyone help me to get a well formatted text file? Thanks in advance.

You'd need to detect what the longest string is for every column for every record, then use that as your spacing guide. Which basically means two passes through the text. one to detect sizes, one to actually do the formatting. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented May 20, 2014 at 14:45

Madhurendra Sachan · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-20 15:08:31Z

1

If you compare with sprintf execution time is quite low.& spaces can be changed. SO i prefer using my own function.

Here is a function which returns you string with enough spaces. Here str is string you want to format.

 function getFormatted($str,$col_width){
  $n=$col_width-strlen($str);
  for(;$n>0;$n--)
  $str.=' ';
  return $str;
}

edited May 20, 2014 at 15:08

answered May 20, 2014 at 14:53

Madhurendra Sachan

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1 Comment

ZhukV Over a year ago

Use this function - is bad idea. The beautiful solution of this problem: use sprintf function with offset formatting.

Adrian Toma · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-20 14:48:43Z

1

You need to pad with spaces, and for that use sprintf:

sprintf("10%s", "string" ); // "string" has a length of 6, and so, first 4 characters will be " "( space );

sprintf documentation: http://www.php.net/manual/ro/function.sprintf.php

(PHP 4, PHP 5) sprintf — Return a formatted string

answered May 20, 2014 at 14:48

Adrian Toma

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