C# - Insert a variable number of spaces into a string? (Formatting an output file)

Alrighty, I'm taking data from a list that I populate a DataGridView with and am exporting it to a text file. I've already done the function to export it to a CSV, and would like to do a plain text version as well.

Because the Titles and other elements are variable in length, when the file is saved and then opened in Notepad it looks like a mess because nothing lines up.

I'd like to have the output look like this:

Sample Title One   Element One   Whatever Else
Sample Title 2     Element 2     Whatever Else
S. T. 3            E3            Whatever Else

I figure that I can loop through each of the elements in order to get the length of the longest one so I can calculate how many spaces to add to each of the remaining element.

My main question is: Is there an elegant way to add a variable number of chars into a string? It'd be nice to have something like: myString.insert(index, charToInsert, howManyToInsert);

Of course, I can obviously just write a function to do this via a loop, but I wanted to see if there was a better way of doing it.

Thanks in advance!

-Sootah

For this you probably want myString.PadRight(totalLength, charToInsert).

See String.PadRight Method (Int32) for more info.

Use String.Format() or TextWriter.Format() (depending on how you actually write to the file) and specify the width of a field.

String.Format("{0,20}{1,15}{2,15}", "Sample Title One", "Element One", "Whatever Else");

You can specify the width of a field within interpolated strings as well:

$"{"Sample Title One",20}{"Element One",15}{"Whatever Else",15}"

And just so you know, you can create a string of repeated characters using the appropriate string contructor.

new String(' ', 20); // string of 20 spaces

Use String.Format:

string title1 = "Sample Title One";
string element1 = "Element One";
string format = "{0,-20} {1,-10}";

string result = string.Format(format, title1, element1);
//or you can print to Console directly with
//Console.WriteLine(format, title1, element1);

In the format {0,-20} means the first argument has a fixed length 20, and the negative sign guarantees the string is printed from left to right.

Just for kicks, here's the functions I wrote to do it before I had the .PadRight bit:

    public string insertSpacesAtEnd(string input, int longest)
    {
        string output = input;
        string spaces = "";
        int inputLength = input.Length;
        int numToInsert = longest - inputLength;

        for (int i = 0; i < numToInsert; i++)
        {
            spaces += " ";
        }

        output += spaces;

        return output;
    }

    public int findLongest(List<Results> theList)
    {
        int longest = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < theList.Count; i++)
        {
            if (longest < theList[i].title.Length)
                longest = theList[i].title.Length;
        }
        return longest;
    }

    ////Usage////
    for (int i = 0; i < storageList.Count; i++)
    {
        output += insertSpacesAtEnd(storageList[i].title, longest + 5) +   storageList[i].rank.Trim() + "     " + storageList[i].term.Trim() + "         " + storageList[i].name + "\r\n";
    }

I agree with Justin, and the WhiteSpace CHAR can be referenced using [ASCII codes here][1] [1]: https://www.dotnetperls.com/ascii-table

Character number 32 represents a white space, Therefore:

string.Empty.PadRight(totalLength, (char)32);

An alternative approach: Create all spaces manually within a custom method and call it:

private static string GetSpaces(int totalLength)
    {
        string result = string.Empty;
        for (int i = 0; i < totalLength; i++)
        {
            result += " ";
        }
        return result;
    }

And call it in your code to create white spaces: GetSpaces(14);