A C++ and Python library for formatting values (numbers, strings, etc.) in fixed-width fields. Useful for printing tabular data and similar.

Features

A single formatter formats any value with the same width: useful for formatting tables, arrays, forms, etc.
The width is measured in Unicode code points.
ANSI terminal escape codes are ignored when counting width, so they may be used to format output for the terminal.

APIs

See cxx/README.md for an introduction to the C++ API.

See python/README.md for an introduction to the Python API.

Installing

With conda (binary packages for Linux and OS/X, Python 3.6):

conda install -c alexhsamuel fixfmt

From PyPI (a requires C++14 compiler and GNU make):

pip install fixfmt

Building

Requires a C++14 compiler, GNU Make, and setuptools to build.

Tested with Python 3.6.

C++ unit tests

Requires Google Test for building and running the C++ tests:

At the top of the repository:

git clone https://github.com/google/googletest
(cd googletest/googletest/make; make)

Python unit tests

Requires pytest to run Python tests. Invoke,

py.test test

Limitations

Counting code points is broken, as is it is not a perfect proxy for display width.

However, for primarily data-oriented applications that this library targets, it does a reasonable job and produces better output than most similar systems. If you know a realible way to count grapheme clusters or invertibly determine display width in a fixed-width Linux and OS/X terminal, please contact the author.