FieldPosition objects are optionally passed to the format( ) methods of the Format class and its subclasses to return information about the start and end positions of a specific part or "field" of the formatted string. This kind of information is often useful for aligning formatted strings in columnsfor example, aligning the decimal points in a column of numbers . The field of interest is specified when the FieldPosition( ) constructor is called. The NumberFormat and DateFormat classes define integer various constants (which end with the string _FIELD ) that can be used here. In Java 1.4 and later you can also construct a FieldPosition by specifying the Format.Field object that identifies the field. (For constant Field instances, see DateFormat.Field , MessageFormat.Field and NumberFormat.Field .) After a FieldPosition has been created and passed to a format( ) method, use getBeginIndex( ) and getEndIndex( ) methods of this class to obtain the starting and ending character positions of the desired field of the formatted string. public class FieldPosition { // Public Constructors 1.4 public FieldPosition (Format.Field attribute ); public FieldPosition (int field ); 1.4 public FieldPosition (Format.Field attribute , int fieldID ); // Public Instance Methods public int getBeginIndex ( ); public int getEndIndex ( ); public int getField ( ); 1.4 public Format.Field getFieldAttribute ( ); 1.2 public void setBeginIndex (int bi ); 1.2 public void setEndIndex (int ei ); // Public Methods Overriding Object 1.2 public boolean equals (Object obj ); 1.2 public int hashCode ( ); 1.2 public String toString ( ); } Passed ToChoiceFormat.format( ) , DateFormat.format( ) , DecimalFormat.format( ) , Format.format( ) , MessageFormat.format( ) , NumberFormat.format( ) , SimpleDateFormat.format( ) |