NAME
Text::ASCIITable - Create a nice formatted table using ASCII characters.
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Pretty nifty if you want to output dynamic text to your console or other
fixed-size-font displays, and at the same time it will display it in a
nice human-readable, or "cool" way.
SYNOPSIS
use Text::ASCIITable;
$t = Text::ASCIITable->new({ headingText => 'Basket' });
$t->setCols('Id','Name','Price');
$t->addRow(1,'Dummy product 1',24.4);
$t->addRow(2,'Dummy product 2',21.2);
$t->addRow(3,'Dummy product 3',12.3);
$t->addRowLine();
$t->addRow('','Total',57.9);
print $t;
# Result:
.------------------------------.
| Basket |
+----+-----------------+-------+
| Id | Name | Price |
+----+-----------------+-------+
| 1 | Dummy product 1 | 24.4 |
| 2 | Dummy product 2 | 21.2 |
| 3 | Dummy product 3 | 12.3 |
+----+-----------------+-------+
| | Total | 57.9 |
'----+-----------------+-------'
FUNCTIONS
new(options)
Initialize a new table. You can specify output-options. For more
options, check out the usage for setOptions()
Usage:
$t = Text::ASCIITable->new();
Or with options:
$t = Text::ASCIITable->new({ hide_Lastline => 1, reportErrors => 0});
setCols(@cols)
Define the columns for the table(compare with <TH> in HTML). For example
"setCols(['Id','Nick','Name'])". Note that you cannot add Cols after you
have added a row. Multiline columnnames are allowed.
addRow(@collist)
Adds one row to the table. This must be an array of strings. If you
defined 3 columns. This array must have 3 items in it. And so on. Should
be self explanatory. The strings can contain newlines.
Note: It does not require argument to be an array, thus;
$t->addRow(['id','name']) and $t->addRow('id','name') does the same thing.
This module is also overloaded to accept push. To construct a table with
the use of overloading you might do the following:
$t = Text::ASCIITable->new();
$t->setCols('one','two','three','four');
push @$t, ( "one\ntwo" ) x 4; # Replaces $t->addrow();
print $t; # Replaces print $t->draw();
Which would construct:
.-----+-----+-------+------.
| one | two | three | four |
|=----+-----+-------+-----=|
| one | one | one | one | # Note that theese two lines
| two | two | two | two | # with text are one singe row.
'-----+-----+-------+------'
There is also possible to give this function an array of arrayrefs and
hence support the output from DBI::selectall_arrayref($sql) without
changes.
Example of multiple-rows pushing:
$t->addRow([
[ 1, 2, 3 ],
[ 4, 5, 6 ],
[ 7, 8, 9 ],
]);
addRowLine([$row])
Will add a line after the current row. As an argument, you may specify
after which row you want a line (first row is 1) or an array of row
numbers. (HINT: If you want a line after every row, read about the
drawRowLine option in setOptions())
Example without arguments: $t->addRow('one','two'¸'three');
$t->addRowLine(); $t->addRow('one','two'¸'three');
Example with argument: $t->addRow('one','two'¸'three');
$t->addRow('one','two'¸'three'); $t->addRow('one','two'¸'three');
$t->addRow('one','two'¸'three'); $t->addRowLine(1); # or multiple:
$t->addRowLine([2,3]);
alignCol($col,$direction) or alignCol({col1 => direction1, col2 => direction2, ... })
Given a columnname, it aligns all data to the given direction in the
table. This looks nice on numerical displays in a column. The column
names in the table will be unaffected by the alignment. Possible
directions is: left, center, right, justify, auto or your own
subroutine. (Hint: Using auto(default), aligns numbers right and text
left)
alignColName($col,$direction)
Given a columnname, it aligns the columnname in the row explaining
columnnames, to the given direction. (auto,left,right,center,justify or
a subroutine) (Hint: Overrides the 'alignHeadRow' option for the
specified column.)
setColWidth($col,$width,$strict)
Wordwrapping/strict size. Set a max-width(in chars) for a column. If
last parameter is 1, the column will be set to the specified width, even
if no text is that long.
Usage:
$t->setColWidth('Description',30);
getTableWidth()
If you need to know how wide your table will be before you draw it. Use
this function.
setOptions(name,value) or setOptions({ option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ... })
Use this to set options like: hide_FirstLine,reportErrors, etc.
Usage:
$t->setOptions('hide_HeadLine',1);
Or set more than one option on the fly:
$t->setOptions({ hide_HeadLine => 1, hide_HeadRow => 1 });
Possible Options
hide_HeadRow
Hides output of the columnlisting. Together with hide_HeadLine, this
makes a table only show the rows. (However, even though the
column-names will not be shown, they will affect the output if they
have for example ridiculoustly long names, and the rows contains
small amount of info. You would end up with a lot of whitespace)
reportErrors
Set to 0 to disable error reporting. Though if a function encounters
an error, it will still return the value 1, to tell you that things
didn't go exactly as they should.
allowHTML
If you are going to use Text::ASCIITable to be shown on HTML pages,
you should set this option to 1 when you are going to use HTML tags
to for example color the text inside the rows, and you want the
browser to handle the table correct.
allowANSI
If you use ANSI codes like <ESC>[1mHi this is bold<ESC>[m or
similar. This option will make the table to be displayed correct
when showed in a ANSI compilant terminal. Set this to 1 to enable.
There is an example of ANSI support in this package, named
ansi-example.pl.
alignHeadRow
Set wich direction the Column-names(in the headrow) are supposed to
point. Must be left, right, center, justify, auto or a user-defined
subroutine.
hide_FirstLine, hide_HeadLine, hide_LastLine
Speaks for it self?
drawRowLine
Set this to 1 to print a line between each row. You can also define
the outputstyle of this line in the draw() function.
headingText
Add a heading above the columnnames/rows wich uses the whole width
of the table to output a heading/title to the table. The
heading-part of the table is automaticly shown when the headingText
option contains text. Note: If this text is so long that it makes
the table wider, it will not hesitate to change width of columns
that have "strict width".
It supports multiline, and with Text::ASCIITable::Wrap you may wrap
your text before entering it, to prevent the title from expanding
the table. Internal wrapping-support for headingText might come in
the future.
headingAlign
Align the heading(as mentioned above) to left, right, center, auto
or using a subroutine.
headingStartChar, headingStopChar
Choose the startingchar and endingchar of the row where the title
is. The default is '|' on both. If you didn't understand this, try
reading about the draw() function.
cb_count
Set the callback subroutine to use when counting characters inside
the table. This is useful to make support for having characters or
codes inside the table that are not shown on the screen to the user,
so the table should not count these characters. This could be for
example HTML tags, or ANSI codes. Though those two examples are
alredy supported internally with the allowHTML and allowANSI,
options. This option expects a CODE reference. (\&callback_function)
undef_as
Sets the replacing string that replaces an undef value sent to
addRow() (or even the overloaded push version of addRow()). The
default value is an empty string ''. An example of use would be to
set it to '(undef)', to show that the input really was undefined.
chaining
Set this to 1 to support chainging of methods. The default is 0,
where the methods return 1 if they come upon an error as mentioned
in the reportErrors option description.
Usage example:
print Text::ASCIITable->new({ chaining => 1 })
->setCols('One','Two','Three')
->addRow([
[ 1, 2, 3 ],
[ 4, 5, 6 ],
[ 7, 8, 9 ],
])
->draw();
Note that ->draw() can be omitted, since Text::ASCIITable is
overloaded to print the table by default.
draw([@topdesign,@toprow,@middle,@middlerow,@bottom,@rowline])
All the arrays containing the layout is optional. If you want to make
your own "design" to the table, you can do that by giving this method
these arrays containing information about which characters to use where.
Custom tables
The draw method takes 6 arrays of strings to define the layout. The
first, third, fifth and sixth is LINE layout and the second and fourth
is ROW layout. The "fourth" parameter is repeated for each row in the
table. The sixth parameter is only used if drawRowLine is enabled.
$t->draw(<LINE>,<ROW>,<LINE>,<ROW>,<LINE>,[<ROWLINE>])
LINE
Takes an array of 4 strings. For example "['|','|','-','+']"
* LEFT - Defines the left chars. May be more than one char.
* RIGHT - Defines the right chars. May be more then one char.
* LINE - Defines the char used for the line. Must be only one
char.
* DELIMETER - Defines the char used for the delimeters. Must be
only one char.
ROW Takes an array of 3 strings. You should not give more than one char
to any of these parameters, if you do.. it will probably destroy the
output.. Unless you do it with the knowledge of how it will end up.
An example: "['|','|','+']"
* LEFT - Define the char used for the left side of the table.
* RIGHT - Define the char used for the right side of the table.
* DELIMETER - Defines the char used for the delimeters.
Examples:
The easiest way:
print $t;
Explanatory example:
print $t->draw( ['L','R','l','D'], # LllllllDllllllR
['L','R','D'], # L info D info R
['L','R','l','D'], # LllllllDllllllR
['L','R','D'], # L info D info R
['L','R','l','D'] # LllllllDllllllR
);
Nice example:
print $t->draw( ['.','.','-','-'], # .-------------.
['|','|','|'], # | info | info |
['|','|','-','-'], # |-------------|
['|','|','|'], # | info | info |
[' \\','/ ','_','|'] # \_____|_____/
);
Nice example2:
print $t->draw( ['.=','=.','-','-'], # .=-----------=.
['|','|','|'], # | info | info |
['|=','=|','-','+'], # |=-----+-----=|
['|','|','|'], # | info | info |
["'=","='",'-','-'] # '=-----------='
);
With Options:
$t->setOptions('drawRowLine',1);
print $t->draw( ['.=','=.','-','-'], # .=-----------=.
['|','|','|'], # | info | info |
['|-','-|','=','='], # |-===========-|
['|','|','|'], # | info | info |
["'=","='",'-','-'], # '=-----------='
['|=','=|','-','+'] # rowseperator
);
Which makes this output:
.=-----------=.
| col1 | col2 |
|-===========-|
| info | info |
|=-----+-----=| <-- rowseperator between each row
| info | info |
'=-----------='
A tips is to enable allowANSI, and use the extra charset in your
terminal to create a beautiful table. But don't expect to get good
results if you use ANSI-formatted table with $t->drawPage.
User-defined subroutines for aligning
If you want to format your text more throughoutly than "auto", or think
you have a better way of aligning text; you can make your own
subroutine.
Here's a exampleroutine that aligns the text to the right.
sub myownalign_cb {
my ($text,$length,$count,$strict) = @_;
$text = (" " x ($length - $count)) . $text;
return substr($text,0,$length) if ($strict);
return $text;
}
$t->alignCol('Info',\&myownalign_cb);
User-defined subroutines for counting
This is a feature to use if you are not happy with the internal
allowHTML or allowANSI support. Given is an example of how you make a
count-callback that makes ASCIITable support ANSI codes inside the
table. (would make the same result as setting allowANSI to 1)
$t->setOptions('cb_count',\&myallowansi_cb);
sub myallowansi_cb {
$_=shift;
s/\33\[(\d+(;\d+)?)?[musfwhojBCDHRJK]//g;
return length($_);
}
drawPage($page,@topdesign,@toprow,@middle,@middlerow,@bottom,@rowline)
If you don't want your table to be wider than your screen you can use
this with $t->setOptions('outputWidth',40) to set the max size of the
output.
Example:
$t->setOptions('outputWidth',80);
for my $page (1..$t->pageCount()) {
print $t->drawPage($page)."\n";
print "continued..\n\n";
}
FEATURES
In case you need to know if this module has what you need, I have made
this list of features included in Text::ASCIITable.
Configurable layout
You can easily alter how the table should look, in many ways. There
are a few examples in the draw() section of this documentation. And
you can remove parts of the layout or even add a heading-part to the
table.
Text Aligning
Align the text in a column auto(matically), left, right, center or
justify. Usually you want to align text to right if you only have
numbers in that row. The 'auto' direction aligns text to left, and
numbers to the right. The 'justify' alignment evens out your text on
each line, so the first and the last word always are at the
beginning and the end of the current line. This gives you the
newspaper paragraph look. You can also use your own subroutine as a
callback-function to align your text.
Multiline support in rows
With the \n(ewline) character you can have rows use more than just
one line on the output. (This looks nice with the drawRowLine option
enabled)
Wordwrap support
You can set a column to not be wider than a set amount of
characters. If a line exceedes for example 30 characters, the line
will be broken up in several lines.
HTML support
If you put in <HTML> tags inside the rows, the output would usually
be broken when viewed in a browser, since the browser "execute" the
tags instead of displaying it. But if you enable allowHTML. You are
able to write html tags inside the rows without the output being
broken if you display it in a browser. But you should not mix this
with wordwrap, since this could make undesirable results.
ANSI support
Allows you to decorate your tables with colors or bold/underline
when you display your tables to a terminal window.
Page-flipping support
If you don't want the table to get wider than your terminal-width.
Errorreporting
If you write a script in perl, and don't want users to be notified
of the errormessages from Text::ASCIITable. You can easily turn of
error reporting by setting reportErrors to 0. You will still get an
1 instead of undef returned from the function.
REQUIRES
Exporter, Carp
AUTHOR
Håkon Nessjøen, <lunatic@cpan.org>
VERSION
Current version is 0.18.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2002-2003 by Håkon Nessjøen. All rights reserved. This module
is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO
Text::FormatTable, Text::Table, Text::SimpleTable