No, there isn't a better approach. Some functions like this were proposed
during XSLT 2.0 development, but the general view was that formatting ASCII
layouts using fixed-width fonts was not a significant use case. Even though
email still seems incapable of handling much else.

Regards,

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wolfgang Laun [mailto:wolfgang.laun@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 11 February 2010 18:36
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Is there a better way for doing printf() in XSLT?
> 
> Trying to improve the readability of an XML file I've come up 
> with some templates (below, part 1) which produce the output 
> shown at the end. As this works fine, the only question I 
> have whether this is the best one can do in XSLT 2, or did I 
> miss some cuter approach?
> Thanks
> -W
> 
>  <xsl:function name="str:pad" as="xsd:string">
>    <xsl:param    name="str" as="xsd:string"/>
>    <xsl:param    name="len" as="xsd:integer"/>
>    <xsl:variable name="lstr" select="string-length($str)"/>
>    <xsl:variable name="pad"
>                  select="string-join((for $i in 1 to $len - 
> $lstr return ' '),'')"/>
>    <xsl:value-of select="concat( ' ',$str,$pad)"/>  </xsl:function>
> 
>  <xsl:function name="str:fmt" as="xsd:string">
>    <xsl:param    name="int" as="xsd:string"/>
>    <xsl:param    name="len" as="xsd:integer"/>
>    <xsl:variable name="lstr" select="string-length($int)"/>
>    <xsl:variable name="pad"
>                  select="string-join((for $i in 1 to $len - 
> $lstr return ' '),'')"/>
>    <xsl:value-of select="concat( $pad,$int)"/>  </xsl:function>
> 
>  <xsl:template match="/">
>     <xsl:apply-templates/>
>     <xsl:text>
> </xsl:text>
>     <xsl:comment>
> <xsl:text>
>  Name                  :        Left                 Right
> </xsl:text>
>     <xsl:for-each select="//topel[@lengthLeft]">
>   <xsl:sort select="@name"/>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:pad(@name,12)"/><xsl:text> [</xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@group,2)"/><xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@x25No,4)"/><xsl:text>]:</xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@lengthLeft,6)"/><xsl:text> 
> m  </xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of 
> select="str:fmt(@maxSpeedLeft,5)"/><xsl:text> km/h </xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@lengthRight,6)"/><xsl:text> 
> m  </xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of 
> select="str:fmt(@maxSpeedRight,5)"/><xsl:text> km/h 
> </xsl:text> <xsl:text> </xsl:text> </xsl:for-each>
> 
> <xsl:for-each select="//topel[@length]">
>   <xsl:sort select="@name"/>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:pad(@name,12)"/><xsl:text> [</xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@group,2)"/><xsl:text>,</xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@x25No,4)"/><xsl:text>]: </xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@length,6)"/><xsl:text> m  
> </xsl:text>
>    <xsl:value-of select="str:fmt(@maxSpeed,5)"/><xsl:text> 
> km/h </xsl:text> <xsl:text> </xsl:text> </xsl:for-each>
>     </xsl:comment>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> </ns2:awsCheckInfo>
> <!--
>  Name                  :        Left                 Right
>  Kr112        [ 2, 101]:    75 m    100 km/h     75 m    100 km/h
>  W1           [ 1, 101]:    25 m     60 km/h     25 m    100 km/h
> ...
>  Gl 101       [31,2101]:    500 m    100 km/h
>  Gl 102       [31,2102]:    500 m    100 km/h
>  Gl 104       [31,2113]:    150 m    100 km/h
> ...
> -->