How to align output text in C# .net-CodePudding

I have some datarows and I want to display them in a textbox;

This is some part of my code:

strDetails  = "Challenge ID"   "\t"   "Challenge Name"   "\t\t"   "Start Time"   "\r\n\r\n";
strDetails  = drChallenge["ChallengeID"]   "\t\t"   drChallenge["ChallengeName"]   "\t\t"   
startTime.ToString("h:mm tt")   "\r\n";

However, the output has some issues with the time string. I dont know how to align them.

CodePudding user response：

You can iterate a member of a columns, get a max lengh a column and take a padleft(max_lengh) all members at column to a max lengh.

CodePudding user response：

The line where the time is out of band, has a Challenge Name of less than 8 characters. A tab spans (by default) 4 spaces. If the Challenge Name is more than 12 characters, the time field would go out of band to the other side.

The real solution is to use something intended for complex formatting. For example you could output a CSV file that can be opened by Excel, or use a layout language such as HTML.

If you really want to do this with text in a textbox then you can:

ensure Challenge Name is no longer than 11 characters
render the Challenge Name as drChallenge["ChallengeName"].PadRight(8, ' ') to ensure it's always at least 8 characters, filled with spaces.