How to use the string formatter method

[Guy Rich]

Hi all, does anyone know of a good online resource that simply and definitevly explains how to use the string formatter method...?

I need to write a series of "records" into a set ascii text files. I need to "delimit" each "record" with a cr-lf sequence in a windows 2008 server environment.
Therefore I'm trying to figure out how to add a \r\n character string at the end of each "record". I tried a "record_string.append(CR) and LF" ; but it didn't work.

Thanks much

Guy

[Rob Spoor]

\r\n should definitely work. Usually you should use %n for the system-specific new line string, but as you explicitly require a Windows line break \r\n is good. Could you show us your formatting code?

[Anton Shaykin]

Also, to encourage Java cross-platform paradigm, you should better use System.getProperty("line.separator") which will return "\r\n" for Windows and "\n" for Linux.

[Jesper de Jong]

Hello Guy, I noticed that you asked the same question on StackOverflow, where I also posted an answer. As Rob says, using \r\n should work, and you can find a list of escape sequences in section 3.10.6 of the Java Language Specification.

When you're using for example a StringBuilder to build a record, you can just append \r\n to it:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append("FieldValue");

// ...

sb.append("\r\n");  // Append record separator

Please BeForthrightWhenCrossPostingToOtherSites.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Start in the Java™ Tutorials, and look at the sections marked "formatting" or similar. Look up the java.util.Formatter class, and the String#format method takes the same arguments as System.out.printf and Formatter#format.