/ 
Text-SpanningTable-1.000000
River stage one • 1 direct dependent • 4 total dependents
/ Text::SpanningTable

NAME

Text::SpanningTable - ASCII tables with support for column spanning.

SYNOPSIS

use Text::SpanningTable;

# create a table object with four columns of varying widths
my $t = Text::SpanningTable->new(10, 20, 15, 25);

# enable automatic trailing newlines
$t->newlines(1);

# print a top border
print $t->hr('top');

# print a row (with header information)
print $t->row('Column 1', 'Column 2', 'Column 3', 'Column 4');

# print a double horizontal rule
print $t->dhr; # also $t->hr('dhr');

# print a row of data
print $t->row('one', 'two', 'three', 'four');

# print a horizontal rule
print $t->hr;

# print another row, with one column that spans all four columns
print $t->row([4, 'Creedence Clearwater Revival']);

# print a horizontal rule
print $t->hr;

# print a row with the first column as normal and another column
# spanning the remaining three
print $t->row(
	'normal',
	[3, 'this column spans three columns and also wraps to the next line.']
);

# finally, print the bottom border
print $t->hr('bottom');

# the output from all these commands is:
.----------+------------------+-------------+-----------------------.
| Column 1 | Column 2         | Column 3    | Column 4              |
+==========+==================+=============+=======================+
| one      | two              | three       | four                  |
+----------+------------------+-------------+-----------------------+
| Creedence Clearwater Revival                                      |
+----------+------------------+-------------+-----------------------+
| normal   | this column spans three columns and also wraps to the  |
|          | next line.                                             |
'----------+------------------+-------------+-----------------------'

DESCRIPTION

Text::SpanningTable provides a mechanism for creating simple ASCII tables, with support for column spanning. It is meant to be used with monospace fonts such as common in terminals, and thus is useful for logging purposes.

This module is inspired by Text::SimpleTable and can generally produce the same output (except that Text::SimpleTable doesn't support column spanning), but with a few key differences:

  • In Text::SimpleTable, you build your table in the object and draw() it when you're done. In Text::SpanningTable, you can print your table (or do whatever you want with the output) as it is being built. If you don't need to have your tables in "real-time", you can just save the output in a variable, but for convenience and compatibility with Text::SimpleTable, this module provides a draw() method (which is actually an alias for the output() method) that returns the table's output.

  • Text::SimpleTable takes care of the top and bottom borders of the table by itself. Due to Text::SpanningTable's "real-time" nature, this functionality is not provided, and you have to take care of that yourself.

  • Text::SimpleTable allows you to pass titles for a header column when creating the table object. This module doesn't have that functionality, you have to create header rows (or footer rows) yourself and how you see fit.

  • Text::SpanningTable provides a second type of horizontal rules (called 'dhr' for 'double horizontal rule') that can be used for header and footer rows (or whatever you see fit).

  • Text::SpanningTable provides an option to define a callback function that can be automatically invoked on the module's output when calling row(), hr() or dhr().

  • In Text::SimpleTable, the widths you define for the columns are the widths of the data they can accommodate, i.e. without the borders and padding. In Text::SpanningTable, the widths you define are WITH the borders and padding. If you are familiar with the CSS and the box model, then columns in Text::SimpleTable have box-sizing set to content-box, while in Text::SpanningTable they have box-sizing set to border-box. So take into account that the width of the column's data will be four characters less than defined.

Like Text::SimpleTable, the columns of the table will always be exactly the same width as defined, i.e. they will not stretch to accommodate the data passed to the cells. If a cell's data is too big, it will be wrapped (with possible word-breaking using the '-' character), thus resulting in more lines of text.

METHODS

new( [@column_widths] )

Creates a new instance of Text::SpanningTable with columns of the provided widths. If you don't provide any column widths, the table will have one column with a width of 100 characters.

Note that currently, a column cannot be less than 6 characters in width.

newlines( [$boolean] )

By default, trailing newlines will NOT be added automatically to the output generated by this module (for example, when printing a horizontal rule, a newline character will not be appended). Pass a boolean value to this method to enable/disable automatic newline creation. Returns the current value of this attribute (after changing it if a boolean value had been passed).

decoration( [$boolean] )

By default, the table will be printed with border decoration. If you want a table with no decoration at all, pass this a false value. Returns the current value of this attribute (after changing it if a boolean value had been passed).

Note that in undecorated tables, the hr() method will behave differently, as documented under "hr( ['top'|'middle'|'bottom'|'dhr'] )".

exec( \&sub, [@args] )

Define a callback function to be invoked whenever calling row(), hr() or dhr(). Pass this method an anonymous subroutine (\&sub above) or a reference to a subroutine, and a list of parameters/arguments you wish this subroutine to have (@args above). When called, the subroutine will receive, as arguments, the generated output, and @args.

So, for example, you can do:

$t->exec(sub { my ($output, $log) = @_; $log->info($output); }, $log);

This would result in $log->info($output) being invoken whenever calling row(), hr() or dhr(), with $output being the output these methods generated. See more info at the row()'s method documentation below.

hr( ['top'|'middle'|'bottom'|'dhr'] )

Generates a horizontal rule of a certain type. Unless a specific type is provided, 'middle' we be used. 'top' generates a top border for the table, 'bottom' generates a bottom border, and 'dhr' is the same as 'middle', but generates a 'double horizontal rule' that is more pronounced and thus can be used for headers and footers.

This method will always result in one line of text.

If table decoration is off (see "decoration( [$boolean] )"), this method will return an empty string, unless 'dhr' is passed, in which case a horizontal rule made out of dashes will be returned.

dhr()

Convenience method that simply calls hr('dhr').

row( @column_data )

Generates a new row from an array holding the data for the row's columns. At a maximum, the number of items in the @column_data array will be the number of columns defined when creating the object. At a minimum, it will have one item. If the passed data doesn't fill the entire row, the rest of the columns will be printed blank (so it is not structurally incorrect to pass insufficient data).

When a column doesn't span, simply push a scalar to the array. When it does span, push an array-ref with two items, the first being the number of columns to span, the second being the scalar data to print. Passing an array-ref with 1 for the first item is the same as just passing the scalar data (as the column will simply span itself).

So, for example, if the table has nine columns, the following is a valid value for @column_data:

( 'one', [2, 'two and three'], 'four', [5, 'five through nine'] )

The following is also valid:

( 'one', [5, 'two through six'] )

Columns seven through nine in the above example will be blank, so it's the same as passing:

( 'one', [5, 'two through six'], ' ', ' ', ' ' )

If a column's data is longer than its width, the data will be wrapped and broken, which will result in the row being constructed from more than one lines of text. Thus, as opposed to the hr() method, this method has two options for a return value: in list context, it will return all the lines constructing the row (with or without newlines at the end of each string as per what was defined with the newlines() method); in scalar context, however, it will return the row as a string containing newline characters that separate the lines of text (once again, a trailing newline will be added to this string only if a true value was passed to newlines()).

If a callback function has been defined, it will not be invoked with the complete output of this row (i.e. with all the lines of text that has resulted), but instead will be called once per each line of text. This is what makes the callback function so useful, as it helps you cope with problems resulting from all the newline characters separating these lines. When the callback function is called on each line of text, the line will only contain the newline character at its end if newlines() has been set to true.

output()

draw()

Returns the entire output generated for the table up to the point of calling this method. It should be stressed that this method does not "finalize" the table by adding top and bottom borders or anything at all. Decoration is done "real-time" and if you don't add top and bottom borders yourself (with hr('top') and hr('bottom'), respectively), this method will not do that for you. Returned output will or will not contain newlines as per the value defined with newlines().

Both the above methods do the same, draw() is provided as an alias for compatibility with Text::SimpleTable.

AUTHOR

Ido Perlmuter, <ido at ido50.net>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-text-spanningtable at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Text-SpanningTable. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Text::SpanningTable

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sebastian Riedel and Marcus Ramberg, authors of Text::SimpleTable, which provided the inspiration of this module.

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2017 Ido Perlmuter

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.