An Elixir app which generates text-based tables for display

Features

• A one-liner for rendering ASCII-style tables with sane defaults.
• Rendering via:
  • the built-in plain-text "ASCII-style" renderer.
  • your own rendering module.

The data structures support:

• column & cell level text alignment: left, center, right.
• table titles & column headers.
• sorting based on raw input data (rather than just strings).
• column, header & cell level support.
• automatic but defineable column & cell level padding.
• styling the table with various vertical & horizontal framing.
• styling the table with custom separator symbols.
• multi-line cell support.

The built-in "ASCII-style" renderer supports all of these features out-of-the-box, but your custom renderers can support a subset if they wish.

Documentation

See the quick start below or check out the full API docs at HexDocs.

Stability

This software is now post v1 and therefore, as per semver, can be considered stable and will have no breaking changes without incrementing the major version number. Any breaking changes, and they will be few and far between, will be documented in the CHANGELOG.

The project officially will attempt to support the last 3 minor versions of Elixir, and the latest 2 majors for OTP. If you are looking for support for older version, then look at older releases.

Current minimum requirements:

• Elixir: 1.8
• OTP: 21

Installation

The package is available on Hex, therefore:

Add table_rex to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [{:table_rex, "~> 3.1.1"}]
end

Then run mix deps.get. That's it for modern Elixir.

If you are on Elixir 1.3 or lower, then start table_rex by adding it to application/0 in mix.exs:

def application do
  [applications: [:logger, :table_rex]]
end

Quick Start

Use the TableRex.quick_render and TableRex.quick_render! functions; for those that just want a table quickly.

Given this data:

title = "Drum & Bass Releases"
header = ["Artist", "Track", "Label", "Year"]
rows = [
  ["Konflict", "Cyanide", "Renegade Hardware", 1999],
  ["Marcus Intalex", "Temperance", "Soul:r", 2004],
  ["Kryptic Minds", "The Forgotten", "Defcom Records", 2007]
]

TableRex.quick_render!/1

TableRex.quick_render!(rows)
|> IO.puts

+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Konflict       | Cyanide       | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
| Marcus Intalex | Temperance    | Soul:r            | 2004 |
| Kryptic Minds  | The Forgotten | Defcom Records    | 2007 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

TableRex.quick_render!/2

TableRex.quick_render!(rows, header)
|> IO.puts

+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Artist         | Track         | Label             | Year |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Konflict       | Cyanide       | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
| Marcus Intalex | Temperance    | Soul:r            | 2004 |
| Kryptic Minds  | The Forgotten | Defcom Records    | 2007 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

TableRex.quick_render!/3

TableRex.quick_render!(rows, header, title)
|> IO.puts

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Drum & Bass Releases                    |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Artist         | Track         | Label             | Year |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Konflict       | Cyanide       | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
| Marcus Intalex | Temperance    | Soul:r            | 2004 |
| Kryptic Minds  | The Forgotten | Defcom Records    | 2007 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

Utilising TableRex.Table for deeper customisation

These examples all use: alias TableRex.Table to shorten the namespace.

Set alignment & padding for specific columns or column ranges:

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.put_column_meta(0, align: :right, padding: 5) # `0` is the column index.
|> Table.put_column_meta(1..2, align: :center) # `1..2` is a range of column indexes. :all also works.
|> Table.render!
|> IO.puts

+------------------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
|             Artist     | Track         | Label             | Year |
+------------------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
|           Konflict     |    Cyanide    | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
|     Marcus Intalex     |  Temperance   |      Soul:r       | 2004 |
|      Kryptic Minds     | The Forgotten |  Defcom Records   | 2007 |
+------------------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

Sort the rows of the table using a column's values:

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.sort(3, :desc) # `3` is the column index, order is :desc or :asc for descending/ascending.
|> Table.render!
|> IO.puts

+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Artist         | Track         | Label             | Year |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Kryptic Minds  | The Forgotten | Defcom Records    | 2007 |
| Marcus Intalex | Temperance    | Soul:r            | 2004 |
| Konflict       | Cyanide       | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

Change the table styling:

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.put_column_meta(:all, align: :center)
|> Table.render!(header_separator_symbol: "=", horizontal_style: :all)
|> IO.puts

+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
|     Artist     |     Track     |       Label       | Year |
+================+===============+===================+======+
|    Konflict    |    Cyanide    | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Marcus Intalex |  Temperance   |      Soul:r       | 2004 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Kryptic Minds  | The Forgotten |  Defcom Records   | 2007 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

Available render options:

• horizontal_style: one of :off, :frame, :header or :all.
• vertical_style: one of :off, :frame or :all.
• horizontal_symbol: draws horizontal row separators.
• vertical_symbol: draws vertical separators.
• intersection_symbol: draws the symbol where horizontal and vertical seperators intersect.
• top_frame_symbol: draws the frame's top horizontal separator.
• title_separator_symbol: draws the horizontal separator under the title.
• header_separator_symbol: draws to draw the horizontal separator under the header.
• bottom_frame_symbol: draws the frame's bottom horizontal separator.

Set cell level meta (including for the header cells):

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.put_header_meta(0..4, align: :center) # row index(es)
|> Table.put_cell_meta(2, 1, align: :right) # column index, row index.
|> Table.render!
|> IO.puts

+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
|     Artist     |     Track     |       Label       | Year |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+
| Konflict       | Cyanide       | Renegade Hardware | 1999 |
| Marcus Intalex | Temperance    |            Soul:r | 2004 |
| Kryptic Minds  | The Forgotten | Defcom Records    | 2007 |
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

Set color for the column, header, and cell:

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.put_column_meta(0, color: :red) # sets column header to red, too
|> Table.put_header_meta(1..4, color: IO.ANSI.color(31))
|> Table.put_cell_meta(2, 1, color: [:green_background, :white])
|> Table.render!
|> IO.puts

Supported color value types:

• atom: a named ANSI sequence defined in IO.ANSI
• string: an embedded ANSI sequence
• chardata: a list of atoms and/or strings
• function: (text, value) -> text
  • where text is the padded value and where the value is a string
  • Note: to render the correct padding, always format and return the text

Conditionally set a color:

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.put_column_meta(3, color: fn(text, value) -> if value in ["1999", "2007"], do: [:blue, text], else: text end)
|> Table.render!
|> IO.puts

Change/pass in your own renderer module:

The default renderer is TableRex.Renderer.Text.

Custom renderer modules must be behaviours of TableRex.Renderer.

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.render!(renderer: YourCustom.Renderer.Module)

Go mad:

Table.new(rows, header)
|> Table.render!(horizontal_style: :all, top_frame_symbol: "*", header_separator_symbol: "=", horizontal_symbol: "~", vertical_symbol: "!")
|> IO.puts

+****************+***************+*******************+******+
! Artist         ! Track         ! Label             ! Year !
+================+===============+===================+======+
! Konflict       ! Cyanide       ! Renegade Hardware ! 1999 !
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~+
! Marcus Intalex ! Temperance    ! Soul:r            ! 2004 !
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~+
! Kryptic Minds  ! The Forgotten ! Defcom Records    ! 2007 !
+----------------|---------------|-------------------|------+

Run the tests

We have an extensive test suite which helps showcase project usage. For example: the quick render functions, table manipulation API or the text renderer module.

To run the test suite, from the project directory, do:

mix test

Release package to Hex

First, bump the semver version & write the changelog, pushing that commit.

Then, tag HEAD with the version & push:

git tag -a vx.x.x -m "vx.x.x"
git push --tags

Then login & publish to Hex:

# Login to hex to retrieve API Key
mix hex.user auth

# Then publish by first setting to docs env to allow building to hexdocs.
MIX_ENV=docs mix hex.publish

Roadmap/Contributing

First off, welcome & thanks!

We use the Github Issues tracker.

If you have found something wrong, please raise an issue.

If you'd like to contribute, check the issues to see where you can help.

Contributions are welcome from anyone at any time but if the piece of work is significant in size, please raise an issue first to avoid instances of wasted work.

License

MIT. See the full license.

Thanks

• Ryanz720, for the original T-Rex image.

• Everyone in #elixir-lang on freenode, for answering the endless questions.

• All of our contributors.