columnize

README

Columnize

Easy column-formatted output for golang

Columnize is a really small Go package that makes building CLI's a little bit easier. In some CLI designs, you want to output a number similar items in a human-readable way with nicely aligned columns. However, figuring out how wide to make each column is a boring problem to solve and eats your valuable time.

Here is an example:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "github.com/ryanuber/columnize"
)

func main() {
    output := []string{
        "Name | Gender | Age",
        "Bob | Male | 38",
        "Sally | Female | 26",
    }
    result, _ := columnize.SimpleFormat(output)
    fmt.Println(result)
}

As you can see, you just give it a list of strings and a delimiter. And the result:

Name   Gender  Age
Bob    Male    38
Sally  Female  26

Columnize is tolerant of missing or empty fields, or even empty lines, so passing in extra lines for spacing should show up as you would expect.

Columnize will also accept a plain string as input. This makes it easy if you already have a CLI that can build up some output and just pass it through Columnize, like so

output := "Name | Gender | Age\n"
output += "Bob | Male | 38\n"
output += "Sally | Female | 26\n"

result, _ := columnize.SimpleFormat(output)
fmt.Println(result)

Configuration

Columnize is configured using a Config, which can be obtained by calling the DefaultConfig() method. You can then tweak the settings in the resulting Config:

config := columnize.DefaultConfig()
config.Delim = "|"
config.Glue = "  "

You can then pass the Config in using the Format method (signature below) to have text formatted to your liking.

Usage

SimpleFormat(intput interface{}) (string, error)

Format(input interface{}, config *Config) (string, error)

Documentation

Index

• func Format(input interface{}, config *Config) (string, error)
• func SimpleFormat(input interface{}) (string, error)
• type Config
  • func DefaultConfig() *Config

Functions

func Format

func Format(input interface{}, config *Config) (string, error)

Format is the public-facing interface that takes either a plain string or a list of strings, plus a delimiter, and returns nicely aligned output.

func SimpleFormat

func SimpleFormat(input interface{}) (string, error)

Convenience function for using Columnize as easy as possible.

Types

type Config

type Config struct {
	// The string by which the lines of input will be split.
	Delim string

	// The string by which columns of output will be separated.
	Glue string
}

func DefaultConfig

func DefaultConfig() *Config

Returns a Config with default values.