How do I use iomanip's setw, setfill, and left/right? Setfill isn't stopping its output

Question

I'm trying to get my output to look like this:

size       time1       time2
-------------------------------
10         4           8
100        48          16
1000       2937        922
10000      123011      3902
100000     22407380    830722

And I know I need to use setw(), setfill(), and left. However, my attempts keep giving me incorrect output. Here is one example of my code:

std::cout << "size" << std::setw(20) << "time" << std::setw(20) << "time2\n";
std::cout << std::setfill('-') << std::setw(60) << "-" << std::endl;
run = 10;
for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    std::cout << run;
    run *= 10;
    std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << time1[i];
    std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << time2[i] << "\n";
}

And here's the output:

size    time1    time2
------------------------------------------------------------
103-------------------13------------------
100171-----------------199-----------------
100013183---------------667-----------------
10000670130--------------8205----------------
10000014030798-------------1403079888---------

I've tried changing the order that I'm using setw(), setfill(), and left, but I'm just flying blind right now. I've also searched iomanip tutorials. I'm following the directions--as far as I can tell--but I'm still not getting it.

How do I stop the setfill() from running over? How do I justify left but use setw() to stop the numbers from running into each other?

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 26 '14 at 03:48

How about:

std::cout << "size" << std::setw(20) << "time" << std::setw(20) << "time2\n";
std::cout << std::setfill('-') << std::setw(60) << "-" << std::endl;
run = 10;
std::cout << std::setfill(' ');  //fill with spaces
for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << run;  // fill the run column
    run *= 10;
    std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << time1[i];
    std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << time2[i] << "\n";
}

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 23 '18 at 17:07

sj0h's answer is great except the titles don't quite line up. To fix it I started the title line with "left" and "setw", I also had to end with "endl" instead of "\n".

  std::cout << std::left << std::setw(20) << "size" << std::setw(20) << "time" << std::setw(20) << "time2" << std::endl;

  std::cout << std::setfill('-') << std::setw(60) << "-" << std::endl;
  run = 10;
  std::cout << std::setfill(' ');  //fill with spaces
  for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
      std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << run;  // fill the run column
      run *= 10;
      std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << time1[i];
      std::cout << std::setw(20) << std::left << time2[i] << std::endl;
  }

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '21 at 04:19

In C++20 you'll be able to use std::format to do this:

  std::cout << std::format("{:20}{:20}{:20}\n", "size", "time", "time2");
  std::cout << std::format("{:-<60}\n", "");
  int run = 10;
  for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    std::cout << std::format("{:<20}{:<20}{:<20}\n", run, time[i], time2[i]);
    run *= 10;
  }

Output:

size                time                time2               
------------------------------------------------------------
10                  4                   8                   
100                 48                  16                  
1000                2937                922                 
10000               123011              3902                
100000              22407380            830722

In the meantime you can use the {fmt} library, std::format is based on. {fmt} also provides the print function that makes this even easier and more efficient (godbolt):

  fmt::print("{:20}{:20}{:20}\n", "size", "time", "time2");
  fmt::print("{:-<60}\n", "");
  int run = 10;
  for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    fmt::print("{:<20}{:<20}{:<20}\n", run, time[i], time2[i]);
    run *= 10;
  }

Disclaimer: I'm the author of {fmt} and C++20 std::format.

How do I use iomanip's setw, setfill, and left/right? Setfill isn't stopping its output

3 Answers3