Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!umd5!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: How do I get printf to move to a tab position?
Keywords: printf, tab, overwrite
Message-ID: <11572@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 19 May 88 14:28:23 GMT
References: <242@tahoma.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 22

In article <242@tahoma.UUCP> jwf0978@tahoma.UUCP (John W. Fawcett) writes:
>... I would like to be able to tab over to a certain position on a
>line and place some text there without overwriting text that was
>already on the line, similar to the "X" format descriptor in FORTRAN.
>The closest I can come so far is to use a "%20s", but this overwrites
>whatever was there.

Do what FORTRAN does: print on a card punch or line printer.  Then
those pesky spaces will not overwrite the non-spaces. :-)

Seriously, most FORTRAN implementations have no idea how to back up;
they simply keep track of the current column, and when asked to get
to column 30 (via T, not X: X means blanks), print 30-current_column
blanks.  This approach works fine in C as well, but you have to count
the columns yourself.

Your operating system (which is not part of the C language) most
likely provides a higher-level screen management library, if you have
more ambition.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris