How to Width Align Your Data
The JGOFS data
management system now supports two ways to insure that the list of your
data aligns with the field names when displayed by your browser.
Prior to the 1.5 release of the software, data field widths were determined
by the length of the field name. While the Web listing program will still
follow this convention, there are two ways to force data to
line up with the corresponding field name.
Method 1 - add width attribute to the field name
You can add field width information to the field name by including the
attribute width=nn when specifying the field names (usually at level
0), where nn is the maximum width of the data. For example,
#Test sample to specify field lengths
lat[width=8] lon[width=9] sal[width=8] day month year time
42.7756 -65.7777 33.570 4 12 1995 0930
42.8765 -65.6767 33.450 4 12 1995 1000
Note that attribute information is enclosed in square brackets and
follows the field name immediately, without any intervening spaces or tabs.
Method 2 - add trailing underscores to the field name
You can increase the field width by adding trailing
underscore characters to the field name. For example,
#Test sample to specify field lengths
lat_____ lon______ sal_____ day month year time
42.7756 -65.7777 33.570 4 12 1995 0930
42.8765 -65.6767 33.450 4 12 1995 1000
The data management software converts the field name and these
trailing underscore characters to the equivalent width=nn attribute.
The trailing underscores are removed from the field name.
Both methods can be used within the same data file.
Last modified: July 28, 1997