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C# PadRight and PadLeft Align Strings
This C# page covers the PadRight and PadLeft methods. PadRight adds spaces to the right of strings.PadRight, PadLeft. PadRight adds spaces to the right of strings. PadLeft meanwhile adds to the left. These methods make text easier to read. Padding a string adds whitespace or other characters to the beginning or end. Any character can be used for padding.
PadRight. This example uses the PadRight method to right align strings. The string literals have padding applied on the right side. The end length of the two strings is 10 characters each. This creates a column.
Based on:
.NET 4.5
C# program that uses PadRight
using System;
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
string s = "cat".PadRight(10);
string s2 = "poodle".PadRight(10);
Console.Write(s);
Console.WriteLine("feline");
Console.Write(s2);
Console.WriteLine("canine");
}
}
Output
The left column is padded to 10 characters wide.
cat feline
poodle canine
On both strings, the PadRight method is called with the int 10 as the argument. This expands, or pads, the width of the string to 10 characters. Next in the example, we output the strings to the Console.
Tip: Padding strings is most useful for Console apps, debug output, or certain text formats.
Example 2. This next example is similar to the first one, but it uses a foreach-loop to build up a columnar, preformatted layout. It shows how to call PadRight on string literals and also on strings in an array.
Note: The output of the example will be a simple table with two columns, similar to the previous example.
C# program that uses foreach loop, PadRight
using System;
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
string[] a = new string[]
{
"cat",
"poodle",
"lizard",
"frog",
"photon"
};
// Output the header.
Console.Write("Key".PadRight(15));
Console.WriteLine("Value");
// Output array.
foreach (string s in a)
{
Console.Write(s.PadRight(15));
Console.WriteLine("noun");
}
}
}
Output
Key Value
cat noun
poodle noun
lizard noun
frog noun
photon noun
Example 3. In many applications, numeric values are aligned to the right. This is how Excel aligns numbers. We see that the numbers on the right are aligned to the right edge. Here's the code that outputs this text layout.
Note: The same logic can be used to create padding in string data. The console calls are not required.
C# program that uses PadRight and PadLeft
using System;
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
int[] a = new int[]
{
1,
40,
6,
700
};
// Output the header.
Console.Write("Letter".PadRight(10));
Console.WriteLine("Number".PadLeft(8));
// Output array.
foreach (int i in a)
{
Console.Write("A".PadRight(10));
Console.WriteLine(i.ToString().PadLeft(8));
}
}
}
Output
Letter Number
A 1
A 40
A 6
A 700
Discussion. It is best to use padding for debugging output methods. For more user-focused displays, having an HTML table or DataGridView is better. Padding is also be useful on certain text printouts—movie theater receipts or bank statements.
Web pages: You can insert the padded text into a PRE element (preformatted). This will render in browsers as a text file.
String literals. These are string objects. You can pad them. Above, string literals like "Letter" have PadRight called on them. Literals with padding are usually how you would make headers for your text tables.
Implementation. How is PadRight implemented in IL? PadRight and PadLeft are implemented in native code that is external to the IL you can inspect. The PadHelper method is internally called. I can't see inside it.
Implementation of PadRight: C#
public string PadRight(int totalWidth)
{
return this.PadHelper(totalWidth, ' ', true);
}
Chars. You can use special characters, such as a dot or dash, for padding. For example, you could use PadRight and PadLeft with periods and connect a string with a right-aligned number. This program adds padding with periods.
C# program that uses char for padding
using System;
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
Console.Write("Sam".PadRight(10, '.'));
Console.WriteLine("535".PadLeft(4, '.'));
Console.Write("Jason".PadRight(10, '.'));
Console.WriteLine("1".PadLeft(4, '.'));
}
}
Output
Sam........535
Jason........1
PadLeft. Here the PadLeft method is tested with two parameters. The first is the column width in characters and the second is the padding character. It is then tested with a single parameter—this yields a padding character of a space.
Overload: The padding methods are overloaded. We can call different "forms" of the methods with different arguments.
Decimal places: PadLeft can be used. You can control the number of decimal places with a call like value.ToString("0.00").
C# program that uses PadLeft
using System;
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
string[] words = { "1", "200", "Samuel", "Perls" };
foreach (string word in words) // Loop over words.
{
// Write ten characters.
Console.WriteLine(word.PadLeft(10, '_'));
// Write ten characters with space.
Console.WriteLine(word.PadLeft(10));
}
}
}
Output
_________1
1
_______200
200
____Samuel
Samuel
_____Perls
Perls
Columns. You can position text in more than one column. This is ideal for developing console programs that provide specific numeric data. But for many applications, using more appealing user interfaces, such as Windows Forms, are preferable.
Tip: On websites HTML tables are often preferable to extra whitespace. The allow the text to flow and wrap.
Optimization. The PadLeft and PadRight methods call into a PadHelper method. This means the code is written in a native computer language and is likely very optimized. But it still must create a new string.
And: This means can improve performance with a cache of the padded strings—in a Dictionary or array.
However: Optimizing padding is often a low-value optimization. Using a StringBuilder to write padding might be a better choice.
StringBuilder: This provides no padding methods. But you can write a certain number of spaces into it, creating padding with no allocation.
Summary. We used the PadRight and PadLeft methods. Presentation layers in your applications are sometimes complex, but sometimes complexity just gets in the way. In these situations, we can use padding to decrease complexity.
And: Padding methods are helpful when developing columnar layouts of numeric data, as with decimal places.