How can I align the columns of tables in Bash?
BashEchoBash Problem Overview
I want to format text as a table. I tried echoing with a '\t' separator, but it was misaligned.
Desired output:
a very long string.......... 112232432 anotherfield
a smaller string 123124343 anotherfield
Bash Solutions
Solution 1 - Bash
Use the column command:
column -t -s' ' filename
Solution 2 - Bash
printf is great, but people forget about it.
$ for num in 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000; do printf "%10s %s\n" $num "foobar"; done
1 foobar
10 foobar
100 foobar
1000 foobar
10000 foobar
100000 foobar
1000000 foobar
$ for((i=0;i<array_size;i++));
do
printf "%10s %10d %10s" stringarray[$i] numberarray[$i] anotherfieldarray[%i]
done
Notice I used %10s for strings. %s is the important part. It tells it to use a string. The 10 in the middle says how many columns it is to be. %d is for numerics (digits).
See man 1 printf for more info.
Solution 3 - Bash
function printTable()
{
local -r delimiter="${1}"
local -r data="$(removeEmptyLines "${2}")"
if [[ "${delimiter}" != '' && "$(isEmptyString "${data}")" = 'false' ]]
then
local -r numberOfLines="$(wc -l <<< "${data}")"
if [[ "${numberOfLines}" -gt '0' ]]
then
local table=''
local i=1
for ((i = 1; i <= "${numberOfLines}"; i = i + 1))
do
local line=''
line="$(sed "${i}q;d" <<< "${data}")"
local numberOfColumns='0'
numberOfColumns="$(awk -F "${delimiter}" '{print NF}' <<< "${line}")"
# Add Line Delimiter
if [[ "${i}" -eq '1' ]]
then
table="${table}$(printf '%s#+' "$(repeatString '#+' "${numberOfColumns}")")"
fi
# Add Header Or Body
table="${table}\n"
local j=1
for ((j = 1; j <= "${numberOfColumns}"; j = j + 1))
do
table="${table}$(printf '#| %s' "$(cut -d "${delimiter}" -f "${j}" <<< "${line}")")"
done
table="${table}#|\n"
# Add Line Delimiter
if [[ "${i}" -eq '1' ]] || [[ "${numberOfLines}" -gt '1' && "${i}" -eq "${numberOfLines}" ]]
then
table="${table}$(printf '%s#+' "$(repeatString '#+' "${numberOfColumns}")")"
fi
done
if [[ "$(isEmptyString "${table}")" = 'false' ]]
then
echo -e "${table}" | column -s '#' -t | awk '/^\+/{gsub(" ", "-", $0)}1'
fi
fi
fi
}
function removeEmptyLines()
{
local -r content="${1}"
echo -e "${content}" | sed '/^\s*$/d'
}
function repeatString()
{
local -r string="${1}"
local -r numberToRepeat="${2}"
if [[ "${string}" != '' && "${numberToRepeat}" =~ ^[1-9][0-9]*$ ]]
then
local -r result="$(printf "%${numberToRepeat}s")"
echo -e "${result// /${string}}"
fi
}
function isEmptyString()
{
local -r string="${1}"
if [[ "$(trimString "${string}")" = '' ]]
then
echo 'true' && return 0
fi
echo 'false' && return 1
}
function trimString()
{
local -r string="${1}"
sed 's,^[[:blank:]]*,,' <<< "${string}" | sed 's,[[:blank:]]*$,,'
}
SAMPLE RUNS
$ cat data-1.txt
HEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3
$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-1.txt)"
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| HEADER 1 | HEADER 2 | HEADER 3 |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
$ cat data-2.txt
HEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3
data 1,data 2,data 3
$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-2.txt)"
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| HEADER 1 | HEADER 2 | HEADER 3 |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| data 1 | data 2 | data 3 |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
$ cat data-3.txt
HEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3
data 1,data 2,data 3
data 4,data 5,data 6
$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-3.txt)"
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| HEADER 1 | HEADER 2 | HEADER 3 |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| data 1 | data 2 | data 3 |
| data 4 | data 5 | data 6 |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
$ cat data-4.txt
HEADER
data
$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-4.txt)"
+---------+
| HEADER |
+---------+
| data |
+---------+
$ cat data-5.txt
HEADER
data 1
data 2
$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-5.txt)"
+---------+
| HEADER |
+---------+
| data 1 |
| data 2 |
+---------+
REF LIB at: https://github.com/gdbtek/linux-cookbooks/blob/master/libraries/util.bash
Solution 4 - Bash
To have the exact same output as you need, you need to format the file like this:
a very long string..........\t 112232432\t anotherfield\n
a smaller string\t 123124343\t anotherfield\n
And then using:
$ column -t -s $'\t' FILE
a very long string.......... 112232432 anotherfield
a smaller string 123124343 anotherfield
Solution 5 - Bash
It's easier than you wonder.
If you are working with a separated-by-semicolon file and header too:
$ (head -n1 file.csv && sort file.csv | grep -v <header>) | column -s";" -t
If you are working with an array (using tab as separator):
for((i=0;i<array_size;i++));
do
echo stringarray[$i] $'\t' numberarray[$i] $'\t' anotherfieldarray[$i] >> tmp_file.csv
done;
cat file.csv | column -t
Solution 6 - Bash
awk solution that deals with stdin
Since column is not POSIX, maybe this is:
mycolumn() (
file="${1:--}"
if [ "$file" = - ]; then
file="$(mktemp)"
cat > "${file}"
fi
awk '
FNR == 1 { if (NR == FNR) next }
NR == FNR {
for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {
l = length($i)
if (w[i] < l)
w[i] = l
}
next
}
{
for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++)
printf "%*s", w[i] + (i > 1 ? 1 : 0), $i
print ""
}
' "$file" "$file"
if [ "$1" = - ]; then
rm "$file"
fi
)
Test:
printf '12 1234 1
12345678 1 123
1234 123456 123456
' > file
Test commands:
mycolumn file
mycolumn <file
mycolumn - <file
Output for all:
12 1234 1
12345678 1 123
1234 123456 123456
See also:
Solution 7 - Bash
I am not sure where you were running this, but the code you posted would not produce the output you gave, at least not in the Bash version that I'm familiar with.
Try this instead:
stringarray=('test' 'some thing' 'very long long long string' 'blah')
numberarray=(1 22 7777 8888888888)
anotherfieldarray=('other' 'mixed' 456 'data')
array_size=4
for((i=0;i<array_size;i++))
do
echo ${stringarray[$i]} $'\x1d' ${numberarray[$i]} $'\x1d' ${anotherfieldarray[$i]}
done | column -t -s$'\x1d'
Note that I'm using the group separator character (0x1D) instead of tab, because if you are getting these arrays from a file, they might contain tabs.
Solution 8 - Bash
Just in case someone wants to do that in PHP, I posted a gist on GitHub:
https://gist.github.com/redestructa/2a7691e7f3ae69ec5161220c99e2d1b3
Simply call:
$output = $tablePrinter->printLinesIntoArray($items, ['title', 'chilProp2']);
You may need to adapt the code if you are using a PHP version older than 7.2.
After that, call echo or writeLine depending on your environment.
Solution 9 - Bash
The below code has been tested and does exactly what is requested in the original question.
Parameters:
%30s Column of 30 char and text right align.
%10d integer notation, %10s will also work. \
stringarray[0]="a very long string.........."
# 28Char (max length for this column)
numberarray[0]=1122324333
# 10digits (max length for this column)
anotherfield[0]="anotherfield"
# 12Char (max length for this column)
stringarray[1]="a smaller string....."
numberarray[1]=123124343
anotherfield[1]="anotherfield"
printf "%30s %10d %13s" "${stringarray[0]}" ${numberarray[0]} "${anotherfield[0]}"
printf "\n"
printf "%30s %10d %13s" "${stringarray[1]}" ${numberarray[1]} "${anotherfield[1]}"
# a var string with spaces has to be quoted
printf "\n Next line will fail \n"
printf "%30s %10d %13s" ${stringarray[0]} ${numberarray[0]} "${anotherfield[0]}"
a very long string.......... 1122324333 anotherfield
a smaller string..... 123124343 anotherfield