Thread: printing null values with printf

I want to print two distinct linked list both containing prize and size. THe result should look like this

--------BUY------------------SELL-----------------
200 1.22 100 2.00
100 1.10 40 3.00
300 4.90
48 5.75

I see two ways of doing this:
- with one printf statement, something like
printf("%5i %5f %5i %5f\n", buySize, buyPrice, sellSize, sellPrice);
If I loop through both lists at a certain point one of the lists is empty, I need to keep printing the empty left values or otherwise the sell values outline to the left. How can I do this
with two separate printf statements for both sets of colums but then I have the same issues.

Any printf wizzards that know how to do this?

When you run out of list on one side or the other, just set the respective values to 0...
Better still, amalgamte the redundent lists and work from a single list.

I don't want to print '0's, that would not be acceptable in this context. Merging the list won't solve it either because you would still have to deal with NULL values. BTW, I also tried something like:

Code:

printf("%5f:\n", (buyPrice == NULL ? NULL : buyPrice))

but then the compiler starts to complain...

Originally Posted by django

I don't want to print '0's, that would not be acceptable in this context. Merging the list won't solve it either because you would still have to deal with NULL values. BTW, I also tried something like:

Code:

printf("%5f:\n", (buyPrice == NULL ? NULL : buyPrice))

but then the compiler starts to complain...

Merging the lists so that your values are all in a single struct is the best answer... Unused values set to 0 can be used as a sentinal value to control how things are printed...

Code:

struct tBuySell
  { float prices[4];
     struct tBuySell *next; }

// display a price point
for(i = 0; i < 4; i++)
  if (bsList->prices[i] > 0)
    printf("%.2f\t",bslist->prices[i]);
  else 
   printf("\t\t");

Like it's hard?

\t most certainly does print a tab on a Windows machine, or at least moves you to the next tab stop (multiple of eight characters), so it's just a question of making sure your \t goes where you want it (and there is the fact that it's stuck to eight characters).

If you want to make it left-aligned, you put a minus sign in.

Originally Posted by tabstop

\t most certainly does print a tab on a Windows machine, or at least moves you to the next tab stop (multiple of eight characters), so it's just a question of making sure your \t goes where you want it (and there is the fact that it's stuck to eight characters).

Weird, does not work for me. Where is configured where the tabstop is placed?

Originally Posted by django

Weird, does not work for me. Where is configured where the tabstop is placed?

It's configured somewhere in Redmond. I used

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    printf("         111111111122222222223333333333\n");
    printf("123456789012345678901234567890123456789\n");
    printf("\tA tab\tAnother tab\tA tab after eight...\n");
}

and got

Code:

         111111111122222222223333333333
123456789012345678901234567890123456789
        A tab   Another tab     A tab after eight...

Originally Posted by django

\t does not result to anything on my windows machine..

Guess I was hoping for some deep printf-secrets but appearantly there not that many. For those who were not aware of it, you can make a variable of the length by uning '*' in the format string of printf like

Code:

printf("%*f\n", margin, floatNumber)

by varying the value of 'margin' you van decide where to start printing. This only works when you are right aligigning, so for now I just choose to print a string of spaces. Thanks everybody.

\t is a tab (like pressing the tab key on your keyboard) used to align data into columns.

Originally Posted by Salem

You could do this perhaps (then)
printf("%*s%f", margin, "", myfloat );
which would print an empty string, padded with as many spaces as necessary, then a regularly aligned float.

Yes, that works, thanks.

The tabstops work too, you should place them before the variable and not after...

Originally Posted by django

Yes, that works, thanks.

The tabstops work too, you should place them before the variable and not after...

The placement of tabstops is dependent on how you want to align your text... for example: if you are working in a loop, putting it before the variable will indent the first column... if you don't want that place it after.