How to left pad integers with a formatter with dots?

I know we can left-pad integers with a formatter like this:

String.format("%7d", 234);   // "    234"
String.format("%07d", 234);  // "0000234"
String.format("%015d", 234); // "0000000000000234"

But, how to replace the zeros by dots (like a plain text content index)?

String.format("%.13d", 234); // doesn't work

I want to produce this:

..........234

I know I can use a loop to add the do开发者_开发百科ts, but I want to know if there is a way to do this with a formatter.

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I think there is no such . padding build in, but you can pad with spaces and then replace them.

 String.format("%15d", 234).replaceAll(' ', '.');

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Another way to do this is to use the Apache Commons Lang lib. http://commons.apache.org/lang/api-release/org/apache/commons/lang/StringUtils.html#leftPad%28java.lang.String,%20int,%20char%29

grundprinzip already pointed that out...

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There's no way to do with with the formatter alone, but

String.format("%015d", 234).replaceFirst("0*","\.");

should do just fine.

(Naturally, you have to then do something with the string -- this one produces a String object which then disappears, since this doesn't assign to anything.)

Update

Damn, forgot the repeat * in the regex.

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You can do it manually. It is not beautiful but it works.

String str = Integer.toString( 234 );
str = "...............".substring( 0, Math.max( 0, 15 - str.length() ) ) + str;