RE: [boost] Re: Thoughts on Format

From: Brey, Edward D (EdwardDBrey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-29 10:55:36

> From: Stewart, Robert [mailto:stewart_at_[hidden]]
> 
> The directionality of < and > will work well for left and 
> right alignment.
> What about centering?  printf() and IOStreams don't provide 
> for that, but
> it's a common formatting task that I'd rather the library got 
> right once and
> for all.

Yes, centering would be helpful (although less so in a spring tab
environment).  '=' might be a good character to represent it, depending on
the surrounding syntax.
 
> I like that, but I suggest altering that slightly: [1:8.2>0]. 
>  The idea is
> that ">" is already useful as a delimiter, so there's no need 
> for both ">"
> and "/".

Yes, this looks like a good improvement.  To know for sure, one would need
to come up with the syntax for all the requirements and see how various
options play together.

> > Do we need to put the width specifier in the placeholder at 
> all?
> > [...]
> 
> I'll posit a situation that may not match reality, but, then 
> again, maybe it
> does:  when translating the format, it may be that the format for the
> alternate language requires a different width.  For example, 
> when formatting
> a number with separators, don't some languages put separators 
> after two
> digits in some places and three in others?  Translating among such a
> language and one that always puts separators after three 
> digits would change
> the width in some circumstances.

I'm having a hard time following this example.  It doesn't seem to indicate
that programmatic widths can affect various placeholders by translation.
Perhaps the example is indicating that it is important for the placeholder
to override a manipulators width specification.

[Spring tabs]
I like it.  This could really make the outputting debugging tables a breeze.
It would leverage well format's stateful behavior, too.  I'd like to find a
syntax that minimizes the number of character sequences that would need to
be escaped.  Do you have a syntax proposal for how to specify the tab stop
locations and alignments?