Best way to have a formatted output with Perl

I want to output strings into eight columns, but I want to keep the spacing the same. I don't want to do it in HTML, but I am not sure how to do it normally. Example:

Something    Something     Something     Something     Something
Else         Else          Else          Else          Else
Another      Another       Another       Another       Another

The amount o开发者_开发问答f rows will change daily, but the column number will always stay the same. What is the best way to do this?

---

printf

    printf "%-11s %-11s %-11s %-11s %-11s %-11s %-11s %-11s\n",
            $column1, $column2, ..., $column8;

Change "11" in the template to whatever value you need.

---

You could use Perl's format. This is probably the "complicated" method that you don't understand, most likely because it gives you many options (left|center|right justification/padding, leading 0's, etc).

Perldoc Example:

Example:
   format STDOUT =
   @<<<<<<   @||||||   @>>>>>>
   "left",   "middle", "right"
   .
Output:
   left      middle    right

Here's another tutorial.

Working Example: (Codepad)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w    

use strict; 

   sub main{    
      my @arr = (['something1','something2','something3','something4','something5','something6','something7','something8']
                ,['else1'     ,'else2'     ,'else3'     ,'else4'     ,'else5'     ,'else6'     ,'else7'     ,'else8'     ]
                ,['another1'  ,'another2'  ,'another3'  ,'another4'  ,'another5'  ,'another6'  ,'another7'  ,'another8'  ]
                );
      
      for my $row (@arr) {
         format STDOUT =
@<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  @<<<<<<<<<<<<  
         @$row
.
         write;
      }

   }    
       
   main();   

---

Here is a live example of Perl6::Form:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Perl6::Form;

my @arr = (
    [1..8],
    [9..16],
    [17..24],
);

foreach my $line (@arr) {
    print form
        "{<<<<<} "x8,
        @{$line};
}

It will output:

1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
9       10      11      12      13      14      15      16
17      18      19      20      21      22      23      24

---

I would look at formatting, but I would do it using Perl 6's (now Raku) Form.pm, which you can obtain as Perl6::Form for Perl 5.

The reason for this is that the format builtin has a number of drawbacks, such as having the format statically defined at compile time (i.e., building it dynamically can be painful and usually requires string eval), along with a whole list of other shortcomings, such as lack of useful field types (and you can't extend these in Perl 5).