Dot leadrs in HTML

[uthamsar]

Is there any way to get dot leaders in html tables? (in one column) For example:
Albania .........
Switzerland .....
United States ...
Is there any tag that we could use to repeat a single character several times?
Thanks !

 

[yandso]

You could write a function that loops through all your values then adds as many dots as necessary to make the line the same length. A server side script would be something like this. This is assuming that you are getting the names from a variable named country.

<%sub fix_length()
do while len(country)< x 'X being your fixed length
country = country&&quot;.&quot;
loop %>

Of course this is assuming that you are looping through your values to write them dynamically.

I hope it helps.
Roj

 

[uthamsar]

I tried a similar trick before I posted this message. I am actually creating an xml file (for 190 countries, for 4 years and around 30 variables) from Vb application using access database. Then I am using an XSL to create country sheets for all those countries. In one shot I could publish on the web and a camera ready printout for the publication. I was able to get evrything I need, superscripting the footnotes, running footer etc., but I want place dot leaders next to each variable name. The out put looks something like this:
United States
Colhead1 1998 1999 2000 2001
var 1 a a a a
var 2 b b b b
what I need is place the dot leaders after the variable name

var1 .......
var2abc ....
var1ab .....
I tried to use a loop in my vb application while I create the xml file.
But with the proportional font it did not work. As I am using XSL, I can not treat each variable separately since this style sheet works loops through each country and formats it accordingly.
Any way thanks for your reply.

 

[toolkit]

You could perhaps use an onLoad handler to update the element values, and then use the String methods in Javascript, eg:

// assume foo points to the element we wish to alter
var dots = "........................................";
var country = foo.value;
var countryDots = country.concat( dots.substr( dots.length - country.length ) );
foo.value = countryDots;

Hope this helps, cheers NEIL

 

[Magnificat]

Are you sure you absolutely need a dot leader? Wouldn't alternating 25% and 50% grey backgrounds work just as well?