print equally spaced elements of a 2D array with printf

Question

I am trying to print a 2d array that has a maximum of 3 digit numbers that are aligned when printed. For example, with a simple printf, it looks like this:

[0, 232, 20, 96, 176, 0, 0]
[0, 0, 24, 0, 0, 176, 0]
[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]

I would like it to be printed with all the commas aligned along the columns with additional whitespace, like this:

[   0, 232,  20,  96, 176,   0,   0]
[   0,   0,  24,   0,   0, 176,   0]
[   0,   0,   0,   0,   0,   0,   0]

How can I do this with printf?

Answer 1

You can use the width prefix to specify the minimum width for the printf conversions: printf("%4d", x); will print int variable x padded to the left with enough spaces to produce at least 4 characters.

If you know the maximum width of any number in the array, you can hardcode this number in the format string. Otherwise you can compute the required width and use %*d and pass an extra argument to specifying the computed width.

Here is a modified version:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
#define M  3
#define N  7
    int a[M][N] = {
        { 0, 232, 20, 96, 176,   0, 0 },
        { 0,   0, 24,  0,   0, 176, 0 },
        { 0,   0,  0,  0,   0,   0, 0 },
    };

    int width = 0;

    /* compute the required width */
    for (size_t i = 0; i < M; i++) {
        for (size_t j = 0; j < N; j++) {
            int w = snprintf(NULL, 0, "%d", a[i][j]);
            if (width < w) {
                width = w;
            }
        }
    }

    /* print the arrays */
    for (size_t i = 0; i < M; i++) {
        printf("[");
        for (size_t j = 0; j < N; j++) {
            if (j != 0) printf(", ");
            printf("%*d", width, a[i][j]);
        }
        printf("]\n");
    }

    return 0;
}

Output:

[  0, 232,  20,  96, 176,   0,   0]
[  0,   0,  24,   0,   0, 176,   0]
[  0,   0,   0,   0,   0,   0,   0]