Question

Need help with output formatting in c++

Answer 1

Can anyone tell me methods to make c plus plus output formatted , and make it look attractive? I am particularly interested in functions that could help me get formatted output .heres a code i want to format .

void student::display()
{
clrscr();
textcolor(GREEN);
cout<<"\n\n\t\t";
cputs("MARK LIST");
cout<<"\n\t\t_________";
cout<<"\n\nNAME:"<<name;
cout<<"\nSTANDARD:"<<std;
cout<<"\nROLL NUMBER:"<<rolno;
cout<<"\nPERCENTAGE:"<<per;
cout<<"\nGRADE:"<<grade;
}

well it looks a mess when printed directly .So i need to know how i can make it look catchy(i used color function) and formatted(i didnt use any function yet).

Answer 2

So you want the documentation to be readable? CODE BLOCKS!

Answer 3

Okay, you want the output nice.

Answer 4

well in my lab exam the total mark is divided and there is separate mark for formatted output

Answer 5

yep @ParthKohli

Answer 6

Not good at C++. I know only some languages :-(
I can read codes but not so good at writing them out, and I see that it's just a student's summary. :-|

Answer 7

nvm...anyway thanks for looking

Answer 8

@FirstFrostByte ,@hba can you please help ?

Answer 9

@hba

Answer 10

For aligning bits of text, you could try iomanip's setw function (see: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iomanip/)

Answer 11

@slotema that link is not working !

Answer 12

the closing ) was included in the URL. Try this one: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iomanip/

Answer 13

hmm...well can u help me formatting this particular part of code above?

Answer 14

Sure thing. Let's start from the longest 'label', which is "ROLL NUMBER:". Add a space for legibility and that's 13 characters wide. So we need to say in your program that all the labels should be 13 characters wide. That way, all the values will be aligned.

Taking a small bit of your code as example:

cout<<"\nSTANDARD:"<<std;
cout<<"\nROLL NUMBER:"<<rolno;

will become:

cout<<"\n" << setw(13) << "STANDARD:"<<std;
cout<<"\n" << setw(13) << "ROLL NUMBER:"<<rolno;

What this will do is making sure that the space taken by both "STANDARD:" and "ROLL NUMBER:" is 13 characters long. If you try this for all couts, you will notice that the text is right-aligned. If you want to have the text left-aligned, you should add the following line before the first setw():

cout.setf(ios_base::left);

setf() sets a number of flags ( http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ios/ios_base/fmtflags/ ), like the alignment or how integers are shown (hexidecimal, decimal or octal) etc.

Answer 15

thanksa lot !! that was about formatting ..how to make it look catchy ? like i used color for heading

Answer 16

any other suggestion?

Answer 17

Perhaps giving the labels a different colour than the values. One thing that would be nice is displaying a failing grade in red and a passing grade in green.

Answer 18

NICE !!! does setw require extra header file ?

Answer 19

or is it included in iostream?

Answer 20

You'll need to #include <iomanip>

Another thing is if you have any floating point numbers, try to get the dots aligned.

Answer 21

that using precision() ?

Answer 22

Precision is about the number of digits to display after the decimal point. I don't know if there is an easy way to align them, but you can split up the number (let's say 10.34) into a fractional part (.34) and an integer part (10).

You can then use setw with right-alignment to print the integer part, followed by a period and than print the fractional part.

Something like:
cout << setw(5) << integer << "." << fraction;

Answer 23

whats the diff between setw and width functions ?

Answer 24

i read that width function can also be used to allign

Answer 25

I guess i am late :/

Answer 26

no u are not i have a bunch of doubts with me ! :)

Answer 27

The only difference between width and setw that I can see is the way they are used. Width, you have to use like `cout.width(x);`, while setw is used as `cout << setw(x);`.

In my opinion, setf has the advantage of fitting in between strings (like `cout << "Hello, " << setw(x) << "World!";`. It is a bit more intuitive for me than the width alternative:

cout << "Hello, ";
cout.setw(x);
cout << "World!";

Answer 28

(that `cout.setw(x);` should of course be `cout.width(x);`)

Answer 29

yaa i also noticed that ...

Answer 30

does the color function work for only one line?

Answer 31

because when i got output MARK LIST only had colour

Answer 32

I don't know. I'm not familiar with textcolor(). It can be due to the use of cputs().

Answer 33

hmm....is there a function by which we can change output font size?

Answer 34

Not that I know of. The command line usually has a fixed size for characters.

Answer 35

oh thanks a lot !! this discussion was really useful for me.
do help me next day :) more doubts coming up as i am revising for my finals

Answer 36

Just put your question on OpenStudy. That way anyone can help you.