text-table
A feature-rich, easy-to-use plain text table formatter.
Introduction
Allows you to easily create and format plain text tables, useful when working with the terminal or when you want to quickly print formatted tables to a dot-matrix printer.
Text::Table is compatible with Ruby 1.8.6, 1.8.7 and 1.9.1 and includes a comprehensive test suite.
Install
gem install text-table
Calling the to_table
Method
Just call the to_table
method (or to_text_table
if the former is already defined) on Arrays (and other Enumerables).
require 'rubygems'
require 'text-table'
array = [
['Student', 'Mid-Terms', 'Finals'],
['Sam', 94, 93],
['Jane', 92, 99],
['Average', 93, 96]
]
puts array.to_table
# +---------+-----------+--------+
# | Student | Mid-Terms | Finals |
# | Sam | 94 | 93 |
# | Jane | 92 | 99 |
# | Average | 93 | 96 |
# +---------+-----------+--------+
You could specify that the first row is the table heading.
puts array.to_table(:first_row_is_head => true)
# +---------+-----------+--------+
# | Student | Mid-Terms | Finals |
# +---------+-----------+--------+
# | Sam | 94 | 93 |
# | Jane | 92 | 99 |
# | Average | 93 | 96 |
# +---------+-----------+--------+
You could also specify that the last row is the table footer.
puts array.to_table(:first_row_is_head => true, :last_row_is_foot => true)
# +---------+-----------+--------+
# | Student | Mid-Terms | Finals |
# +---------+-----------+--------+
# | Sam | 94 | 93 |
# | Jane | 92 | 99 |
# +---------+-----------+--------+
# | Average | 93 | 96 |
# +---------+-----------+--------+
Creating a New Text::Table Object
You could create a Text::Table object by passing an options hash:
table = Text::Table.new(:head => ['A', 'B'], :rows => [['a1', 'b1'], ['a2', 'b2']])
Or by passing a block:
table = Text::Table.new do |t|
t.head = ['A', 'B']
t.rows = [['a1', 'b1']]
t.rows << ['a2', 'b2']
end
table.to_s
# +----+----+
# | A | B |
# +----+----+
# | a1 | b1 |
# | a2 | b2 |
# +----+----+
Aligning Cells and Spanning Columns
Alignment and column span can be specified by passing a cell as a Hash object.
The acceptable aligments are :left
, :center
and :right
.
Cells and footers are aligned to the left by default, while headers are centered by default.
table = Text::Table.new do |t|
t.head = ['Heading A', 'Heading B']
t.rows << ['a1', 'b1']
t.rows << ['a2', {:value => 'b2', :align => :right}]
t.rows << ['a3', 'b3']
t.rows << [{:value => 'a4', :colspan => 2, :align => :center}]
end
puts table
# +-----------+-----------+
# | Heading A | Heading B |
# +-----------+-----------+
# | a1 | b1 |
# | a2 | b2 |
# | a3 | b3 |
# | a4 |
# +-----------+-----------+
There’s also an easy way to align columns:
table = Text::Table.new :rows => [%w(a bb), %w(aa bbb), %w(aaa b)]
puts table
# +-----+-----+
# | a | bb |
# | aa | bbb |
# | aaa | b |
# +-----+-----+
table.align_column 2, :right
# +-----+-----+
# | a | bb |
# | aa | bbb |
# | aaa | b |
# +-----+-----+
Note that headers, spanned cells and cells with explicit alignments are not affected by align_column
.
Adding a Separator
You can add a separator by inserting :separator
symbols between the rows.
Text::Table.new :rows => [
['a', 'b'],
['c', 'd'],
:separator,
['e', 'f'],
:separator,
['g', 'h']
]
# +---+---+
# | a | b |
# | c | d |
# +---+---+
# | e | f |
# +---+---+
# | g | h |
# +---+---+
Other Options
Cell padding and table boundaries can be modified.
Text::Table.new :rows => [['a', 'b'], ['c', 'd']],
:horizontal_padding => 3,
:vertical_boundary => '=',
:horizontal_boundary => ':',
:boundary_intersection => 'O'
# O=======O=======O
# : a : b :
# : c : d :
# O=======O=======O
Special Thanks
This project was inspired by visionmedia’s terminal-table, and to a lesser-extent, by prawn, ruport and hirb. I’ve decided to start a new project, primarily as an exercise, and to be able to model-out the classes differently. Thanks to the authors and contributors of these projects.
Contributors
-
Claudio Bustos (clbustos)
-
Fix Ruby 1.9 warnings on shadowed outer local variables
-
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Aaron Tinio. See LICENSE for details.