I don't know why sprintf does not work for you. Here is something
close; you will have to work on the spacing but the formating in
sprintf lets you specify the field size:
> sprintf("%2s %-20s%6d%14.5f", "7", "WORD",
5550, 3.14158)
[1] " 7 WORD 5550
3.14158">
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Jason Rupert <jasonkrupert at yahoo.com>
wrote:>
> Within R I need to reformat my data so that the output looks like the
following:
> " 7 WORDS ? ? ? ? ? ? ?5550 ? ? ? ? 3.14159 ? ? ? ? -6. ? ? ? ? ?
6."
>
> Previous folks were doing this by hand, but I would like to have a formula
do it.
>
>
> That is,
> (a) 7 (place holder) on second column, then a space,
> (b) WORDS (placeholder) is a string descriptor that is left justified to
column 4,
> (c) 5550 (place hoder) is right justified to column 26,
> (d) 3.14159 (place holder) is right justified to column 41,
> (e) -6. (place holder) is right justified to column 53, and
> (f) 6. (place holder) is right justified to column 66.
>
> The basic sprintf commands did not seem like they would get me there, nor
did the "paste" capability.
>
> After getting the data into that format I plan to use "write" to
place the data in an output *.txt file.
>
> Thank you for any hints and tips that can be provided.
>
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>
--
Jim Holtman
Cincinnati, OH
+1 513 646 9390
What is the problem that you are trying to solve?