Simple print_f() example from the php.net site won't display right.

[Slips]

Hello all, I was just reading the PHP manual and came across this example that doesn't work right for me. Anyone know why this is so? Tried looking through the manual for this but found nothing about it..

 

$s = 'monkey';
$t = 'many monkeys';

printf("[%s]\n",      $s); // standard string output
printf("[%10s]\n",    $s); // right-justification with spaces
printf("[%-10s]\n",   $s); // left-justification with spaces
printf("[%010s]\n",   $s); // zero-padding works on strings too
printf("[%'#10s]\n",  $s); // use the custom padding character '#'
printf("[%10.10s]\n", $t); // left-justification but with a cutoff of 10 characters

 

The above example will output:

 

[monkey]

[    monkey]

[monkey    ]

[0000monkey]

[####monkey]

[many monke]

 

 

 

 

 

But when i tried this for myself, 

printf("[%10s]\n",    $s);

does not left pad the output as so : [    monkey].Instead it outputs [ monkey].

 

But adding a 0 as so : 

printf("[%010s]\n",    $s);

, pads it with 4 0's, outputting :

[0000monkey] . Is there some other way to make it pad spaces that i'm missing?

 

Running PHP 5.3.2

 

[salathe]

Are you viewing this in a web browser (likely, unknowingly, as HTML)? The padding is happening but you just can't see it.

 

Do one of the following:

• Use "view source" in the browser to see what is really being output.
  
• Send the text as plain text, using ini_set('default_mimetype', 'text/plain') or similar, instead of HTML.
  
• Preserve the spacing, even in HTML, by wrapping the output in <pre> tags.
  

 

[Slips]

Wow, all three ways you suggested worked great, but it doesn't seem to preserve the spaces when in text/html. Is this normal? I tried the same code on chrome as well, and got the same results (Padding was eaten away).

[salathe]

Yes, it is entirely normal and you will see the same behaviour in all browsers.

 

There are technical reasons why, in HTML, the format of the document (how the HTML source code looks) is different from how it is rendered (how it looks in a browser). But all that you need to know is that multiple spaces are displayed as just one (unless you use something like <pre>) so the following all display in the same way (as Some text here).

 

• Some                text            here
  
• Some                                text here
  
• Some text here
  

[Slips]

I see, that explains all those times my spaces wouldn't display, thanks a lot for clearing that up.