Align numbers at decimal point

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• VimTip139
• VimTip894
• VimTip570

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Tip: #893 - Align numbers at decimal point

Created: March 10, 2005 6:37 Complexity: intermediate Author: Michael Fitz Version: 5.7 Karma: 3/5 Imported from: Tip#893

To see the _really_ alignment you should use a fixedsized font (eg. FixedSys on Windows) or mark this all and copy it into vim!

Suppose, you've gotten some numbers in a ugly format:

---BEG
123
2.5678
-13.44
100.5
  +47.11
---END   

You want to have them nice aligned with 5 decimals written out. First, we align any line left to the beginning:

:%s§^\s*§§

---BEG
123
2.5678
-13.44
100.5
+47.11
---END   

Now we split at the decimal-point (if any) and shift the fractional part wide to the right and add five '0' at the end (because we want 5 fractional digts).

(The decimal-point has been replaced by '!' for simpleness: you are not forced to escape '!' :-)

:%s§\([-+]\?\d\+\)\.\?\(\d*$\)§\1                        !\200000§

---BEG
123                        !00000
2                        !567800000
-13                        !4400000
100                        !500000
+47                        !1100000
---END   

This tricky substitue aligns the fractional part at column 15:

:%s§\%15c\s*!§!§

---BEG
123           !00000
2             !567800000
-13           !4400000
100           !500000
+47           !1100000
---END   

Now we shift the integral part back by exchanging it with leading spaces (and by the mean replacing '!' by decimal-point):

:%s§\(^\S*\)\(\s*\)!§\2\1.§

---BEG
           123.00000
             2.567800000
           -13.4400000
           100.500000
           +47.1100000
---END   

Now we truncate each fractional part to 5 digits:

:%s§\%21c\d*§§
          
---BEG
           123.00000
             2.56780
           -13.44000
           100.50000
           +47.11000
---END  

Finally we add a '+'-sign where it's missing:

:%s§\s\(\d\)§+\1§


---BEG
          +123.00000
            +2.56780
           -13.44000
          +100.50000
           +47.11000
---END 

Looks now very nice, doesn't it?

Comments

Addendum to this tip: I usually use the (german) paragraph-sign '§' to surround the substitute-patterns, because this letter is very seldom used in any IT-related context ;-)

Anonymous , March 10, 2005 6:40

---

FYI: AlignMaps provides the \anum (actually <Leader>anum) to do something similar:

123
  2.5678
-13.44
100.5
+47.11 

It doesn't append the zeros, just does a numeric alignment. \anum also handles the use of commas instead of periods, European style.

NdrOchip--AT--ScampbellPfamily.AbizM - NOSPAM , March 10, 2005 12:50

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