Creating a fixed width file in C#

Question

What is the best way to create a fixed width file in C#. I have a bunch of fields with lengths to write out. Say 20,80.10,2 etc all left aligned. Is there an easy way to do

Answer 1

You can use string.Format to easily pad a value with spaces e.g.

string a = String.Format("|{0,5}|{1,5}|{2,5}", 1, 20, 300);
string b = String.Format("|{0,-5}|{1,-5}|{2,-5}", 1, 20, 300);

// 'a' will be equal to "|    1|   20|  300|"
// 'b' will be equal to "|1    |20   |300  |"