An ASCII table with flexible column number, column width, wrapping, spanning and themes.
Using this class is quite simple. First get a new instance of the ASCII Table using one of the two static factory methods:
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newTable(Integer, Integer) for evenly distributed columns, for instance AsciiTable at=AsciiTable.newTable(3, 76); will create a new table with 3 columns with 24 characters width each. The remaining 4 characters (to table width of 76) are used to vertical lines.
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newTable(Integer[]) for preset column width, for instance AsciiTable at=AsciiTable.newTable(new Integer[]{10, 20, 30}); will create a new table with 3 columns, where column 1 has a width of 10 characters, column 2 has a width of 20 characters and column 3 has a width of 30 characters. The overall table has then a width of 64 characters (60 characters for the columns plus 4 characters for vertical lines).
Once the table is created addRow(Object...) can be used to add rows to it. Finally, call render() render the table into a string. To change the appearance of the rendered table use render(Options). One can create options manually or simply use TableOptions to do the job. TableOptions provides methods to change the padding character for the table rows and the table theme. The theme needs to implement TableTheme. A number of standard themes are defined in StandardTableThemes, including light, double and heavy UTF-8 character boxes and LaTeX style table themes. Themes and padding characters are applied per render call, enabling a table to be rendered multiple times with different options.
A simple example creating a table with 3 rows and three columns. The first row spans 3 columns, each column of the second row fits into a single line, and the second and third column of the third row are broken into two lines:
AsciiTable at=AsciiTable.newTable(3, 76);
at.addRow(null, null, "Table Heading");
at.addRow("first row (col1)", "with some information", "and more information");
at.addRow("second row (col1)", "with some information (col2)", "and more information (col3)");
System.out.println(at.render());
The output of this example will be:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Table Heading | +------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+ |first row (col1) |with some information |and more information | +------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+ |second row (col1) |with some information |and more information | | |(col2) |(col3) | +------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+
Another example, this time using an Integer[] to initialise the table. The table again has 3 rows and 3 columns, but this time column 1 is set to 10 characters, column 2 is set to 15 characters and column 3 is set to 20 characters. We now also set the theme to "light":
Integer[] columns=new Integer[]{10, 15, 20};
AsciiTable at=AsciiTable.newTable(columns);
at.addRow(null, null, "Table Heading");
at.addRow("row 1", "this is col 2", "and this is column 3");
at.addRow("row 2", "some text for column 2", "and some text for column 3");
System.err.println(at.render(new TableOptions().setRenderTheme(StandardTableThemes.LIGHT)));
The output of this example will be:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Table Heading │ ├──────────┬───────────────┬────────────────────┤ │row 1 │this is col 2 │and this is column 3│ ├──────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤ │row 2 │some text for │and some text for │ │ │column 2 │column 3 │ └──────────┴───────────────┴────────────────────┘
If you use the theme StandardTableThemes.DOUBLE, the output should look like this:
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ Table Heading ║ ╠══════════╦═══════════════╦════════════════════╣ ║row 1 ║this is col 2 ║and this is column 3║ ╠══════════╬═══════════════╬════════════════════╣ ║row 2 ║some text for ║and some text for ║ ║ ║column 2 ║column 3 ║ ╚══════════╩═══════════════╩════════════════════╝
If you use the theme StandardTableThemes.LIGHT_DOUBLE, the output should look like this:
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════════╕ │ Table Heading │ ╞══════════╤═══════════════╤════════════════════╡ │row 1 │this is col 2 │and this is column 3│ ╞══════════╪═══════════════╪════════════════════╡ │row 2 │some text for │and some text for │ │ │column 2 │column 3 │ ╘══════════╧═══════════════╧════════════════════╛
If you use the theme StandardTableThemes.DOUBLE_LIGHT, the output should look like this:
╓───────────────────────────────────────────────╖ ║ Table Heading ║ ╟──────────╥───────────────╥────────────────────╢ ║row 1 ║this is col 2 ║and this is column 3║ ╟──────────╫───────────────╫────────────────────╢ ║row 2 ║some text for ║and some text for ║ ║ ║column 2 ║column 3 ║ ╙──────────╨───────────────╨────────────────────╜
The look and feel of themes with heavy characters can differ, depending on the font that is being used. Many console fonts on windows do not show heavy box drawing characters as monotype or have varying width for whitespaces when using heavy character. The following shows a table using the standard heavy theme (StandardTableThemes.HEAVY):
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ Table Heading ┃ ┣━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┫ ┃row 1 ┃this is col 2 ┃and this is column 3┃ ┣━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┫ ┃row 2 ┃some text for ┃and some text for ┃ ┃ ┃column 2 ┃column 3 ┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
There are also a number of LaTeX style themes pre-defined. For instance StandardTableThemes.LATEX_LIGHT_TRIPLE_DASH:
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
Table Heading
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
row 1 this is col 2 and this is column 3
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
row 2 some text for and some text for
column 2 column 3
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
This blog post explains how to get UTF-8 support in the whole tool chain blog on UTF-8. Updates will be at here SKB Wiki on UTF-8.