Print a array of strings nicely in C

Question

I am working with C printing the array of strings which is so huge Ex:

static const char * const fruits[] =
{   
"apple",
"banana",
"pine apple",
"two apple",
"two banana",
"two  pine apple",
"three apple",
"three banana",
"three pine apple"
};

I am trying to iterate and print the values of array 3 in a row

void printNames(){
    int i;
    for(i = 0; i < 10 ; i++){
            if(i%3== 0){
                printf("\n");
            }
            printf("%s: %d | ",fruits[i],i);
        }
    }
    printf("\n");
}

This gives me the output:

apple:0 | banana :1 | pine apple:2 |
two apple:3 | two banana :4 | two  pine apple:5 |
three apple:6 |three banana :7 | three pine apple:8 |

I am trying to achieve something like this:

apple:0       | banana :1       | pine apple:2       |
two apple:3   | two banana :4   | two  pine apple:5  |
three apple:6 | three banana :7 | three pine apple:8 |

Any suggestions and help is appreciated Thanks.

Answer 1

This iterates through fruits and assigns an overall width and a column width based on strlen and the number of digits. There is also a MAX of twenty for the length of a string.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define COLS 3
#define MAX 20

static const char * const separator = " | ";
static const char * const fruits[] = {
    "apple",
    "banana",
    "pine apple",
    "two apple",
    "two banana",
    "two  pine apple",
    "three apple",
    "three banana",
    "three pine apple",
    "four abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
    "four 0123456789",
    "four pine apple",
    NULL
};

int main ( void) {
    int i;
    int overall = 0;
    int column[COLS] = { 0};

    for ( i = 0; fruits[i]; i++){//fruits[i] is not NULL
        int digits = 0;
        int temp = i;
        while ( temp) {
            ++digits;
            temp /= 10;
        }

        temp = strlen ( fruits[i]);
        if ( temp > MAX) {
            temp = MAX;
        }
        temp += digits;
        if ( overall < temp) {
            overall = temp;
        }
        if ( column[i % COLS] < temp) {
            column[i % COLS] = temp;
        }
    }
    //use overall width
    for ( i = 0; fruits[i]; i++){
        if ( i % COLS == 0){
            printf ( "\n");
        }
        else {
            printf ( "%s", separator);
        }
        int len = strlen ( fruits[i]);
        if ( len >= MAX) {
            len = MAX;
        }
        int width = overall - len;
        printf ( "%.*s: %-*d", MAX, fruits[i], width, i);
    }
    printf ( "\n");
    //use column width
    for ( i = 0; fruits[i]; i++){
        if ( i % COLS == 0){
            printf ( "\n");
        }
        else {
            printf ( "%s", separator);
        }
        int len = strlen ( fruits[i]);
        if ( len >= MAX) {
            len = MAX;
        }
        int width = column[i % COLS] - len;
        printf ( "%.*s: %-*d", MAX, fruits[i], width, i);
    }
    printf ( "\n");
}