Terminal Table¶ ↑

Description¶ ↑

Terminal Table is a fast and simple, yet feature rich ASCII table generator written in Ruby.

Installation¶ ↑

Install gemcutter.org and execute:

$ gem install terminal-table

Usage¶ ↑

Basics¶ ↑

To use Terminal Table:

require 'terminal-table'

To generate a table, provide an array of arrays (which are interpreted as rows):

rows = []
rows << ['One', 1]
rows << ['Two', 2]
rows << ['Three', 3]
table = Terminal::Table.new :rows => rows

# > puts table
#
# +-------+---+
# | One   | 1 |
# | Two   | 2 |
# | Three | 3 |
# +-------+---+

The constructor can also be given a block which is either yielded the Table object or instance evaluated:

table = Terminal::Table.new do |t|
  t.rows = rows
end

table = Terminal::Table.new do
  self.rows = rows
end

Adding rows one by one:

table = Terminal::Table.new do |t|
  t << ['One', 1]
  t.add_row ['Two', 2]
end

To add separators between rows:

table = Terminal::Table.new do |t|
  t << ['One', 1]
  t << :separator
  t.add_row ['Two', 2]
  t.add_separator
  t.add_row ['Three', 3]
end

# > puts table
#
# +-------+---+
# | One   | 1 |
# +-------+---+
# | Two   | 2 |
# +-------+---+
# | Three | 3 |
# +-------+---+

Cells can handle multiline content:

table = Terminal::Table.new do |t|
  t << ['One', 1]
  t << :separator
  t.add_row ["Two\nDouble", 2]
  t.add_separator
  t.add_row ['Three', 3]
end

# > puts table
#
# +--------+---+
# | One    | 1 |
# +--------+---+
# | Two    | 2 |
# | Double |   |
# +--------+---+
# | Three  | 3 |
# +--------+---+

Head¶ ↑

To add a head to the table:

table = Terminal::Table.new :headings => ['Word', 'Number'], :rows => rows

# > puts table
#
# +-------+--------+
# | Word  | Number |
# +-------+--------+
# | One   | 1      |
# | Two   | 2      |
# | Three | 3      |
# +-------+--------+

Title¶ ↑

To add a title to the table:

table = Terminal::Table.new :title => "Cheatsheet", :headings => ['Word', 'Number'], :rows => rows

# > puts table
#
# +------------+--------+
# |     Cheatsheet      |
# +------------+--------+
# | Word       | Number |
# +------------+--------+
# | One        | 1      |
# | Two        | 2      |
# | Three      | 3      |
# +------------+--------+

Alignment¶ ↑

To align the second column to the right:

table.align_column(1, :right)

# > puts table
#
# +-------+--------+
# | Word  | Number |
# +-------+--------+
# | One   |      1 |
# | Two   |      2 |
# | Three |      3 |
# +-------+--------+

To align an individual cell, you specify the cell value in a hash along the alignment:

table << ["Four", {:value => 4.0, :alignment => :center}]

# > puts table
#
# +-------+--------+
# | Word  | Number |
# +-------+--------+
# | One   |      1 |
# | Two   |      2 |
# | Three |      3 |
# | Four  |  4.0   |
# +-------+--------+

Style¶ ↑

To specifify style options:

table = Terminal::Table.new :headings => ['Word', 'Number'], :rows => rows, :style => {:width => 80}

# > puts table
#
# +--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
# | Word                                 | Number                                |
# +--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
# | One                                  | 1                                     |
# | Two                                  | 2                                     |
# | Three                                | 3                                     |
# +--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+

And change styles on the fly:

table.style = {:width => 40, :padding_left => 3, :border_x => "=", :border_i => "x"}

# > puts table
#
# x====================x=================x
# |               Cheatsheet             |
# x====================x=================x
# |   Word             |   Number        |
# x====================x=================x
# |   One              |   1             |
# |   Two              |   2             |
# |   Three            |   3             |
# x====================x=================x

To change the default style options:

Terminal::Style.defaults = {:width => 80}

All Table objects created afterwards will inherit these defaults.

Constructor options and setter methods¶ ↑

Valid options for the constructor are :rows, :headings, :style and :title - and all options can also be set on the created table object by their setter method:

table = Terminal::Table.new
table.title = "Cheatsheet"
table.headings = ['Word', 'Number']
table.rows = rows
table.style = {:width => 40}

More examples¶ ↑

For more examples, please see the examples/examples.rb file included in the source distribution.

Author¶ ↑

TJ Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca>

License¶ ↑

(The MIT License)

Copyright © 2008-2009 TJ Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the ‘Software’), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, an d/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.