Member Avatar for vbcoder123456

Hi all,

I have a requirement as follows,

I have to display a list of datas in to a list box in button click functionality. When i click the button, values should be fetched from database table and loaded in to the list box.
for example: the database table has two values say,
item number
apple 10
pineapple 20
orange 10
jackfruit 25

i am succesfull in fetching the data and displaying it in the list in following way,
apple 10
pineapple 20
orange 10
jackfruit 25

Now i need to align it in the following way in to the listbox

apple              10 
pineapple          20
orange             10
jackfruit          25

how can i do this ?

Thanks in Advance
VBCoder123456

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Jx_Man

Dani AI

Generated

Short answer: alignment depends on the platform. For a quick fix the simplest route is to render each item with a fixed-width font and pad the first field; the proper fix is to use a control that supports columns (ListView in WinForms or GridView/ListView/Repeater in ASP.NET). As requested code examples, and following 's note that formatting methods work, a few practical options are shown below.

Quick fix (keep a plain ListBox): switch the ListBox font to a monospaced face (for example "Courier New") and build each line using padding so columns line up.

' VB: pad the name to 20 characters, then append quantity
Dim name As String = reader.GetString(0)
Dim qty As String = reader(1).ToString()
Dim line As String = name.PadRight(20) & qty
listBox.Items.Add(line)

Recommended (tabular) options

  • WinForms ListView (details view) — true columns, no padding hacks:

    listView.View = View.Details
listView.Columns.Add("Item", 200)
listView.Columns.Add("Qty", 60)
Dim lvi As New ListViewItem(name)
lvi.SubItems.Add(qty)
listView.Items.Add(lvi)

  • ASP.NET GridView — renders a real table on the page:

    
<asp:GridView ID="gvItems" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False">
<Columns>
  <asp:BoundField DataField="Item" HeaderText="Item" />
  <asp:BoundField DataField="Qty" HeaderText="Qty" />
</Columns>
</asp:GridView>

' Code-behind:
Dim dt As New DataTable()
dt.Load(reader)
gvItems.DataSource = dt
gvItems.DataBind()



Notes and troubleshooting: String.Format (as suggested by @selvaganapathy) is fine for composing the string but still requires a monospaced font to align in a ListBox. In HTML, multiple spaces collapse, so using a web ListBox or <select> with space padding will not work—use a table/GridView or CSS with preserved whitespace. For varying name lengths, choose the pad width to accommodate the longest expected value or use a column control to avoid brittle formatting.

Recommended Answers

All 5 Replies

Member Avatar for Jx_Man

>> i am succesfull in fetching the data and displaying it in the list in following way,
- post your code

Member Avatar for vbcoder123456

inside the button click i have written the following code

cmd = New SqlCommand("select * from  table", conn)
                billdatard = cmd.ExecuteReader()
                billListBox.Refresh()
                billListBox.Items.Clear()
                While billdatard.Read()
                    firstval = billdatard(0)
                    secondval = billdatard(1)
                    totval = firstval + 				System.Convert.ToString(secondval)
                    billListBox.Items.Add(totval)
		end while

i am able to concatenate the values, but i am not able to align it as mentioned above...

Member Avatar for selvaganapathy

Hi, You can try String.Format()

Try this

Dim str As String
        'Here 20 is the width of the first string
        '-means Left Align, 0 and 1 are index
        str = String.Format("{0,-20} {1,2}", "Hi", 10)
        MessageBox.Show(str)
Member Avatar for realback

sir,
This code where i will put please show me

at the insert query or any other code


Thank you

Member Avatar for Jx_Man

hi realback..
Please do not resurrect old thread..just make your own thread.

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