# How to specify the format in writedlm?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-specify-the-format-in-writedlm/4058>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [June 2, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-specify-the-format-in-writedlm/4058 "2017-06-02T14:50:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![giordano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/giordano/32/2166_2.png) [@giordano](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/giordano)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-specify-the-format-in-writedlm/4058/2 "2017-06-02T15:31:55Z")

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See

> [@More control over writedlm formatting](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/more-control-over-writedlm-formatting/2840):
>
> Hi, I’ve recently discovered that writedlm() tends to output floating-point numbers using a very strange format pattern which removes the fractional part by decreasing exponent. Not only it is terribly confusing, the data is no longer easy to read and understand by a human. An example: 6.0444e-5 -\> 60444e-9 2.15234e-5 -\> 215234e-10 3.3253e-5 -\> 33253e-9 It is not a bug - print\_shortest has done it job by reducing the output by exactly one character - a decimal mark. But it is not human reada…

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