printf field width doesn't support multibyte characters?

Question

I want printf to recognize multi-byte characters when calculating the field width so that columns line up properly... I can\'t find an answer to this problem and was wonderi

Answer 1

A language like python will probably solve your problems in a simpler, more controllable way...

#!/usr/bin/python
# coding=utf-8

import sys
import codecs
import unicodedata

out = codecs.getwriter('utf-8')(sys.stdout)

def width(string):
    return sum(1+(unicodedata.east_asian_width(c) in "WF")
        for c in string)

a1=[u'する', u'します', u'trazan', u'した', u'しました']
a2=[u'dipsy', u'laa-laa', u'banarne', u'po', u'tinky winky']

for i,j in zip(a1,a2):
    out.write('%s %s: %s\n' % (i, ' '*(12-width(i)), j))