From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2008-07-16T14:05:46+09:00
Subject: Re: printing columns

Michael Pope wrote:
> I'm trying to print some data to the terminal in columns and haven't
> seen a way to do it properly.  I've tried "fred".center(80) to try and
> center the text at column 80 but when I start entering data before
> "fred" it starts to push "fred" over to the right.
> 
> Is there a way to print at a specific column regardless of what text is
> on the same line before hand or after?

Use an excape char sequence to move forward?

$ ruby -e 'print "0123456789"*8; print "\r"; puts 
"fred".center(80).gsub(" ", "\e[C")'
01234567890123456789012345678901234567fred23456789012345678901234567890123456789


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       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407