ItextSharp : Adding cells to table using loop - vb.net

Question

As I am new to ItextSharp, I am trying to change the existing functionality on how the cells are added to PdfPTable .. currently the cells are added row wise, I want them to be added column wise with the help of a loop.
There are two lists, the first list fills the first column, the second list fills the whole of second column. If the lists have unequal rowcount, I have to add empty cells against those columns.
I tried doing some research on web for this but couldnt find a suitable solution.
Can someone provide an example to achieve this?

Answer 1

I'm not going to answer with anything iText specific since this is more of a general programming problem. The basic idea is that you need to find the maximum count of the two lists, loop from zero to that maximum, and check each list to see if that value falls in range. If it is in range, use the value and if it isn't, create your empty cell. Below is a very simple implementation of this:
''//Two sample lists
Dim ListA As New List(Of String) From {"A", "B", "C"}
Dim ListB As New List(Of String) From {"Apple", "Bat"}
''//Find the maximum count of the two lists
Dim X = Math.Max(ListA.Count, ListB.Count)
''//Index notations are zero-based so loop from zero to one
''//less than the total
For I = 0 To (X - 1)
If I >= ListA.Count Then
''//Our index is past the limit of the first column, add empty cell here
Console.WriteLine("<A>")
Else
''//Our index is within the limits of the first column
Console.WriteLine(ListA(I))
End If
If I >= ListB.Count Then
''//Our index is past the limit of the second column, add empty cell here
Console.WriteLine("<B>")
Else
''//Our index is within the limits of the first column
Console.WriteLine(ListB(I))
End If
Next
EDIT
If you have more than just two columns you can extrapolate this to something like the below:
Dim ListA As New List(Of String) From {"A", "B", "C"}
Dim ListB As New List(Of String) From {"Apple", "Bat"}
Dim ListC As New List(Of String) From {"Alice", "Bob", "Charlie", "Daniel"}
Dim AllLists As New List(Of IEnumerable(Of Object))
AllLists.Add(ListA)
AllLists.Add(ListB)
AllLists.Add(ListC)
Dim Z = AllLists.Max(Function(l) l.Count)
For I = 0 To (Z - 1)
For Each L In AllLists
If I >= L.Count Then
Console.WriteLine("<BLANK>")
Else
Console.WriteLine(L(I).ToString())
End If
Next
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