Generic implementation for Alignment

[karljj1]

Hi,
Im looking at one of the examples in the code:
Placeholder.cs has this example:

"{Items.Length,10:choose(1,2,3):one|two|three}"

For some reason the alignment is not being applied. It looks like its only done in the Default Formatter and its not being applied in this example for me. Any ideas? Also I had to change it to use | instead of , for the format values.

[axunonb]

Thanks for the hint.
The examples in xmldoc should of course be correct. But you're better off having a look at the unit tests, simply because they all must work.

[axunonb]

If a custom formatter is used, the default formatter will not be called. That's why there's no alignment.
Taking care of Alignment must take place in the custom formatter.
Wonder whether this brings any benefit for the standard ChooseFormatter.

[axunonb]

Should Alignment become part of IFormatter?
Then it was clear this must be tackled by a formatter (throw NotImplementedException, do nothing, deal like string.Format).

[karljj1]

Should Alignment become part of IFormatter?
Then it was clear this must be tackled by a formatter (throw NotImplementedException, do nothing, deal like string.Format).

Yeah it makes sense to do that. Its confusing to a user at the moment as its only applied when 1 type of formatter is used.
Im trying to write our docs to explain to a non-programmer how to format strings and it confused me ;)

[axunonb]

Still thinking about what's better to add to IFormatter?

void AlignFormat();
or
Action<int, char> AlignFormat { get; set; } (here, the fill character instead of blank could become part of the implementation)

Feature for v3.

[karljj1]

Isn't it essentially the same thing for all of them? If the formatter handles the item then apply the alignment. Maybe it could be handled in a generic way so that it does not need to be implemented by each formatter?

[axunonb]

Will consider this option, too. Definitely a feature request.

[axunonb]

version/v3:
Handling alignment will go to FormattingInfo, while SmartFormatter.EvaluateSelectors will set FormattingInfo.Alignment from the parsed Format. This way, alignment will be available to all formatters out-of-the-box. The character used to align items defaults to space (0x20), but can be customized with FormatterSettings.AlignmentFillCharacter.

[axunonb]

Closed with "Alignment option always available" (#174)