NAME

Text::ASCIITable - Create a nice formatted table using ASCII characters. Nice, if you want to output dynamic text to your console or other fixed-size displays.

SYNOPSIS

use Text::ASCIITable;

$t = new Text::ASCIITable;
$t->setCols(['Nickname','Name']);
$t->addRow('Lunatic-|','Håkon Nessjøen');
$t->addRow('tesepe','William Viker');
$t->addRow('espen','Espen Ursin-Holm');
$t->addRow('mamikk','Martin Mikkelsen');
$t->addRow('p33r','Espen A. Jütte');
print $t->draw(); 

FUNCTIONS

new(options)

Initialize a new table. You can specify output-options. For more options, check out the usage for setOptions(name,value)

Usage:
$t = new Text::ASCIITable;

Or with options:
$t = new Text::ASCIITable({ 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.

addCol($col)

Add a column to the columnlist. This still can't be done after you have added a row.

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.

alignCol($col,$direction)

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 not be unaffected by the alignment. Possible directions is: left, center and right. (Hint: It is often very useful to align numbers to the right, and text to the left.)

setColWidth($col,$width)

Wordwrapping. Set a max-width(in chars) for a column.

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)

Use this to set options like: hide_FirstLine,hide_HeadLine,hide_HeadRow,hide_LastLine.

$t->setOptions('hide_HeadLine',1);

draw([@topdesign,@toprow,@middle,@middlerow,@bottom])

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 5 arrays of strings to define the layout. The first, third and fifth is LINE layout and the second and fourth is ROW layout. The fourth parameter is repeated for each row in the table.

$t->draw(<LINE>,<ROW>,<LINE>,<ROW>,<LINE>)

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:

$t->draw();

Explanatory example:

$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:

$t->draw( ['.','.','-','-'],   # .-------------.
          ['|','|','|'],       # | info | info |
          ['|','|','-','-'],   # |-------------|
          ['|','|','|'],       # | info | info |
          [' \\','/ ','_','|'] #  \_____|_____/
         ));

Nice example2:

$t->draw( ['.=','=.','-','-'],   # .=-----------=.
          ['|','|','|'],         # | info | info |
          ['|=','=|','-','+'],   # |=-----+-----=|
          ['|','|','|'],         # | info | info |
          ["'=","='",'-','-']    # '=-----------='
         ));

REQUIRES

Exporter, Carp, Text::Aligner, Text::Wrap

AUTHOR

Håkon Nessjøen, lunatic@skonux.net

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.

cpanm Text::ASCIITable

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Text::ASCIITable