From: David Alan Black <dblack@...>
Date: 2002-08-01T15:08:48+09:00
Subject: Re: How to make a virtual 2nd column!!!

Hi --

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Kurt Euler wrote:

> All-
>
> Here's a record formatting question for you:
>
> Say I have a record like in this format...
>
> nnnnn<tab>This is a sample sentence meant to demonstrate desired word wrapping to make the appearance of a virtual column from a single long string that doesn't have any hard returns.
>
> ... and I want to format it to look something like this:
>
> nnnnn   This is a sample sentence meant to
>         demonstrate desired word wrapping
>         to make the appearance of a virtual
>         column from a single long string
>         that doesn't have any hard returns.
>
> where:
>
> - nnnnn is a 5 character string.
> - <tab> is a tab character (to be replaced by three spaces).

> - The first space after every 35 or so characters in the sentence
> (2nd field of the record) is replaced by a hard return plus eight
> spaces.

> - The sample above is one of many records in a file, separated by a
> hard return.

OK, a first shot at it:

  # Very quick, home-rolled text wrapper (there are others out
  # there somewhere)
  class String
    def wrap(cols=80)
      gsub!(/\n/," ")
      gsub!(/.{1,#{cols}}(?:\s|\z)/) { |s| "#{s}\n" }
    end
  end

  # The leading spaces effect
  def hanging_indent(tag,text,cols=25)
    w = text.wrap(cols).gsub(/^\s*/," " * (tag.size + 3))
    w[0..tag.size-1] = tag
    w
  end

  w = "This is a sample sentence meant to demonstrate desired word
  wrapping to make the appearance of a virtual column from a single
  long string that doesn't have any hard returns."

  puts hanging_indent("nnnnn",w,35)


gives me:

nnnnn   This is a sample sentence meant to
        demonstrate desired word wrapping
        to make the appearance of a virtual
        column from a single long string
        that doesn't have any hard returns.


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav