Java™ How To Program (Early Objects), Tenth Edition

Formatting Strings with Field Widths and Justification

Line 13 outputs the headers for two columns of output. The first column displays the year and the second column the amount on deposit at the end of that year. We use the format specifier %20s to output the String "Amount on Deposit". The integer 20 between the % and the conversion character s indicates that the value should be displayed with a field width of 20—that is, printf displays the value with at least 20 character positions. If the value to be output is less than 20 character positions wide (17 characters in this example), the value is right justified in the field by default. If the year value to be output were more than four character positions wide, the field width would be extended ...