High-level Programming Language (Pascal)

Formatting Output

• the output format of an item can be specified by appending a format descriptor to the item in an output list
• the format descriptor takes one of the following forms :

  :<w> or :<w> :<d>

  • where w and d are integer-valued expressions
  • :<w> is the field width
    
    
    • specifies that the value is to be displayed in a field consisting of w spaces
    • the value will be right justified in this field
    • real values will be displayed in exponential form
    • if the size of the field is too small, the field will be enlarged for the values
      
      
  • :<w> :<d> is used to display real values in decimal form
    
    
    • w is the field width, and d is the number of digits to be displayed to the right of the decimal points
    • negative sign, decimal point and exponent symbol E form part of the field width
    • the value will be rounded to a places or zero padded as necessary
      
      
• a list of examples
  
  

  Action	Statement	Output
  		123456789012345
  Formatting integer values	writeln (1235 :5); writeln (1235 :0);	1235 1235
  Real values	writeln (1.235 :10); writeln (1.235 :1:2);	1.235E+01 1.24
  Characters and strings	writeln ('A' :5); writeln ('ABC' :0);	A ABC