[Tutor] printing columns

[Chris Kassopulo]

On Thu, 25 Jul 2002 19:46:39 -0500
"Rob" <rob@uselesspython.com> wrote:

> Actually, what I had in mind was to have output I could paste directly
> into a C++ header file. The output from my original code should
> compile without error, but I thought it would be a nice touch to
> display it in pretty columns.
> 
> Rob
> 

Greetings,

This is my first post to the list.  I'm new to python and my programming
experience is very limited (poking around in fortran and c 15 years
ago).

By coincidence, the first python script I decided to write is a program
to output a list in columns, so I'll throw my hat in the ring.  Already,
my script has benefitted from this thread.  Here is my solution to the
script at hand:

#! /usr/bin/env python

import string
import sys
	
menuItems = (sys.builtin_module_names)

# find longest string
i = 0
longestLength = len(menuItems[i])
while i < len(menuItems):
	x = len(menuItems[i])
	i = i + 1
	if x > longestLength:
		longestLength = x
		
# field width for ljust
fieldWidth = longestLength + 2		

# output the list
myInt = 1
numberofColumns = 1
currentColumn = 1
for item in menuItems:
	if currentColumn < numberofColumns:
		print '#define ROB_' + string.ljust(item,fieldWidth) +
str(myInt),
		currentColumn = currentColumn + 1
		if myInt == len(menuItems):
			print
	else:
		print '#define ROB_' + string.ljust(item,fieldWidth) +
str(myInt)
		currentColumn = 1
	myInt = myInt + 1		
	
-- 
Chris Kassopulo _/\_ Linux User #199893 _/\_ Slackware