Formatting a string

Question

Hello All
Is there a way I can use format specifiers with variables?
OK so I need to format a string to be a certain length equal to the longest string I am using. So what I would like to use is something like:
%xs where x is the number of the length of the longest string I have. So if I have a string with 9 characters and one with 4 characters then I need 5 spaces on the left side of the 4 character string to push it to the right. (5 = 9 - 4). But the 9 might become 12 one time, or 3 the other, so it is a variable length.
I tried to use concatenation to build the formatter expression, but the printf line did not understand it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Well I can think of two solutions...
If you want to not modify the Strings and just show the outcomes of adding the spaced you can simply print the appropriate amount of spaces before the string...
public class Sandbox {
     public static void main(String[] arg)     {
          String s1 = new String("Hello World");
          String s2 = new String("Hello");
          System.out.println(s1);
          for (int x=0; x<(s1.length() - s2.length()); x++) {
               System.out.print(" ");
          System.out.print(s2);
OUTCOME:
Hello World
      HelloBut if you want to actually make the string that certain amount of spaces longer you can use the following...
import java.lang.StringBuilder;
public class Sandbox2 {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          String s1 = new String("Hello World");
          String s2 = new String("Hello");
          StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(s2);
          for (int x=0; x<(s1.length() - s2.length()); x++) {
               sb.insert(0, " ");
          System.out.println(s1+"\n"+sb);
OUTCOME:
Hello World
      Hello