Question

Possible Duplicate:
How can I pad a String in Java?

I have a stuation in which my method1() return the string of various size and I want to display the string in a fix space (say length 50 character) I can use String.substring() if the length is greater than 50 character but not sure what to do if the string length is less than 50 character , how can I achieve that ?

for example my method1() return (in different call) :
John
Michael
J
Ab

While method2() return :
first
Second
Third

and I want to print the result like

John                 First
Michael              Second
J                    Third
Ab                   Forth

I don’t want to use any other character except space.

Answer 1

public String toFixedLength(String str, int sz) {      
  String ret;
  int len = str.length();

  if (len == sz) {
    ret = str;
  } else if (len > sz) {
    ret = str.substring(0, sz);
  } else { // len < sz
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(str);

    char[] ch = new char[sz - len];
    Arrays.fill(ch, ' ');
    sb.append(ch);
    ret = sb.toString();
  }

  return ret;
}