text-table <img src=“https://secure.travis-ci.org/aptinio/text-table.png” />¶ ↑

A feature-rich, easy-to-use plain text table formatter.

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.

gem install text-table

require 'text-table'

table = Text::Table.new
table.head = ['A', 'B']
table.rows = [['a1', 'b1']]
table.rows << ['a2', 'b2']

table.to_s

#    +----+----+
#    | A  | B  |
#    +----+----+
#    | a1 | b1 |
#    | a2 | b2 |
#    +----+----+

You can also pass an options hash when instantiating a Text::Table:

table = Text::Table.new(:head => ['A', 'B'], :rows => [['a1', 'b1'], ['a2', 'b2']])

Just call the to_table method (or to_text_table if the former is already defined) on Arrays (and other Enumerables).

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     |
#    +---------+-----------+--------+

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
table.head = ['Heading A', 'Heading B']
table.rows << ['a1', 'b1']
table.rows << ['a2', {:value => 'b2', :align => :right}]
table.rows << ['a3', 'b3']
table.rows << [{:value => 'a4', :colspan => 2, :align => :center}]

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.

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 |
#    +---+---+

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

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.

• Claudio Bustos (clbustos)

  • Fix Ruby 1.9 warnings on shadowed outer local variables

• Kaoru Maeda (mad-p)

  • Fixed performance issue with large number of rows

Copyright © 2009 Aaron Tinio. See LICENSE for details.