Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
I have a Java assignment that I have been having real trouble with. I almost finished it finally, but the thing is that I have to display weather statistics (based on data calculated or imported from another file) to the terminal and a new file. What I originally did was use all variants of System.out for printing to terminal so I have good formatting. But then I couldn't figure out how to bring that data to the file afterwards, without duplicating each print statement with a new one that just prints the same thing but to the file. So then I re-wrote each print statement just to print to the new file using Printwriter and not the terminal. Then I created a while loop to print everything from the file to the terminal, problem is, it didn't keep any of the formatting. The data is all jumbled up. It looks fine in the file, but it prints everything based on which print statement I used to display all the info at once. So the big Q is, how do I print information from a textfile I've written to, and display it back to the terminal keeping all of its formatting?
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
How are you controlling the formatting in the file? If you use tabs you can have a problem if the displaying code has different settings for the tabs. Did you remember to restore the lineend characters that are stripped by the readLine method?
Can you do a screen print of the console with the output and post the file's contents so we can see what you mean by: all jumbled up?
3 Attachment(s)
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
I'm mainly using escape characters and printf. I don't know anything about readLine yet. I know why I got what I got, I just don't know how to get what I got in the first picture without printing directly from the script instead of the file.
This is expected output when printed from script to terminal:
Attachment 857
Bad output when printed from file to terminal. Using System.out.print(<variable with file contents>)
Attachment 858
Bad output when printed from file to terminal. Using System.out.println(<variable with file contents>)
Attachment 859
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
How are you reading the data from the file? What class and what method(s)?
How/where are you adding newline characters to the Strings that are shown on the console?
Quote:
I'm mainly using escape characters
If you use anything but spaces to format your output, different programs will handle things like tab characters differently.
Can you post the file's contents so we can see how the forum's software displays it?
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
Classes I used:
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
This is what is being printed.
Code :
outFile.println("\t\t\tHurricanes 1980 - 2006\n");
outFile.println("Year\tHurricane\tCategory\tPressure (mb)\tWind Speed (mph)");
outFile.println("========================================================================");
for (int x = 0 ; x < years.length; x++){
outFile.printf("%1d %10s %12d %17d %16.1f \n",years[x], names[x], category[x], pressures[x], windSpeed[x]);
}
outFile.println("========================================================================");
outFile.print("Average");
outFile.printf("%21.0f %17.0f %16.1f\n", catAverage, pressAverage, winSpeeAverage);
outFile.print("Maximum");
outFile.printf("%21d %17d %16.1f\n", maxCategory, maxPressure, maxWindSpeed);
outFile.print("Minimum");
outFile.printf("%21d %17d %16.1f\n\n", minCategory, minPressure, minWindSpeed);
outFile.println("Number of Category 1:" + cat1);
outFile.println("Number of Category 2:" + cat2);
outFile.println("Number of Category 3:" + cat3);
outFile.println("Number of Category 4:" + cat4);
outFile.println("Number of Category 5:" + cat5);
outFile.close();
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
Can you post the file's contents so we can see how the forum's software displays it?
Get rid of the tab characters in the headers.
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
It looks fine in the file:
Code :
Hurricanes 1980 - 2006
Year Hurricane Category Pressure (mb) Wind Speed (mph)
========================================================================
1980 Allen 3 945 115.1
1983 Alicia 3 962 115.1
1984 Diana 3 949 115.1
1985 Bob 1 1002 74.8
1985 Danny 1 987 92.1
1985 Elena 3 959 115.1
1985 Gloria 2 942 103.6
1985 Juan 1 971 86.3
1985 Kate 2 967 97.8
1986 Bonnie 1 990 86.3
1986 Charley 1 990 74.8
1987 Floyd 1 993 74.8
1988 Florence 1 984 80.6
1989 Chantal 1 986 80.6
1989 Hugo 4 934 138.1
1989 Jerry 1 983 86.3
1991 Bob 2 962 103.6
1992 Andrew 5 922 166.9
1993 Emily 3 960 115.1
1995 Erin 2 973 97.8
1995 Opal 3 942 115.1
1996 Bertha 2 974 103.6
1996 Fran 3 954 115.1
1997 Danny 1 984 80.6
1998 Bonnie 2 964 109.3
1998 Earl 1 987 80.6
1998 Georges 2 964 103.6
1999 Bret 3 951 115.1
1999 Floyd 2 956 103.6
1999 Irene 1 987 80.6
2002 Lili 1 963 92.1
2003 Claudette 1 979 92.1
2003 Isabel 2 957 103.6
2004 Alex 1 972 80.6
2004 Charley 4 941 149.6
2004 Gaston 1 985 74.8
2004 Frances 2 960 103.6
2004 Ivan 3 946 120.9
2004 Jeanne 3 950 120.9
2005 Cindy 1 992 74.8
2005 Dennis 4 930 149.6
2005 Emily 4 929 155.4
2005 Irene 2 975 97.8
2005 Katrina 5 902 172.7
2005 Maria 3 960 115.1
2005 Nate 1 979 92.1
2005 Ophelia 1 976 92.1
2005 Phillipe 1 985 80.6
2005 Rita 5 897 172.7
2005 Stan 1 979 80.6
2005 Vince 1 987 74.8
2005 Wilma 5 882 172.7
2005 Beta 3 960 115.1
2005 Epsilon 1 979 86.3
2006 Ernesto 1 995 74.8
2006 Florence 1 972 92.1
2006 Gordon 3 955 120.9
2006 Helene 3 954 126.6
2006 Isaac 1 985 86.3
========================================================================
Average 2 964 105.1
Maximum 5 1002 172.7
Minimum 1 882 74.8
Number of Category 1:26
Number of Category 2:11
Number of Category 3:14
Number of Category 4:4
Number of Category 5:4
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mwebb
But then I couldn't figure out how to bring that data to the file afterwards, without duplicating each print statement with a new one that just prints the same thing but to the file. So then I re-wrote each print statement just to print to the new file using Printwriter and not the terminal. Then I created a while loop to print everything from the file to the terminal
So you didn't like duplicating printing stuff to screen and to a file (2 steps). Instead you decided to write everything to file, read it back in and then display to screen (3 steps). Plus the added overhead of doing file IO twice making your design less efficient.
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
I would think the design would be more efficient. I tried to minimize the amount of code as much as possible while obtaining the desired result. Otherwise my teacher will tell me to re-correct it when I might as well try and do it right the first time. She usually prefers the script in the most conservative amount of code. Why have 20 more lines of code when I can just add a few more that loops back whats already there? Or some other method? Of course only if that's possible, which leads us back to the big question.
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
Writing less code != to more efficient. Performing file IO is expensive in regards to resources. Writing to file once is more efficient than writing to file and then reading it back in. Doesn't it make sense to you? Why bother reading something from a file that you already hold in memory?
Re: Printwriter class: displaying File contents to screen with included formatting?
I guess I see what your saying. I didn't think of it that way, I just always looked at things in length. Alright, I'll submit my assignment that prints to terminal and file. It does seem ridiculous now, doing it the way I was thinking. The output step of the assignment was pretty vague so I guess the answer to my question was supposed to be easier than I thought. I'll consider this solved. If it was supposed to be done differently I'll come back and show how it should be, for educational purposes to all those Java trainees like myself out there.
