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Asked: 2026-05-12T15:54:43+00:00

I have ran into a bit of problem. Originally, I have the following input

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I have ran into a bit of problem. Originally, I have the following input of the format:

12345     apple
12     orange

I saved the first column as $num and second column as $fruit. I want the output to look like this (see below). I would like for the output to align as if the $num are of all the same length. In reality, the $num will consists of variable-length numbers.

12345     apple
12        orange

As suggested, I use the following code:

$line = sprintf "%--10s %-20s", $num, $fruit;

This solution works great in command-line display, but this formatting is not retained when I try to display this via HTML. For example..

print "<html><head></head><body>
        $line
        </body></html>";

This produces the same output as the original before formatting. Do you guys have a suggestion as to how I can retain the sprintf formatting in html web-based display? I try to pad the $num with whitespaces, but the following code doesn’t seem to work for me. 

$num .= (" " x (10 - length($num)));

Anyways, I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    HTML ignores extra whitespace. And the fact that it’s probably displaying with a proportional font means it wouldn’t line up even if the extra spaces were there.

    The easy option is to just surround the text with <pre> tags, which will display by default with a monospace font and whitespace preserved. Alternatively, you can have your code generate an HTML table.

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