align-text

What is align-text?

The align-text npm package is used to align text in various ways, such as left, right, or center alignment. It provides a simple API to manipulate text alignment in strings, which can be useful for formatting console output, generating text-based reports, or creating command-line interfaces.

What are align-text's main functionalities?

Center Alignment

This feature allows you to center-align a given string. The code sample demonstrates how to center-align the text 'Hello, World!'.

const align = require('align-text');
const result = align('Hello, World!', { align: 'center' });
console.log(result);

Left Alignment

This feature allows you to left-align a given string. The code sample demonstrates how to left-align the text 'Hello, World!'.

const align = require('align-text');
const result = align('Hello, World!', { align: 'left' });
console.log(result);

Right Alignment

This feature allows you to right-align a given string. The code sample demonstrates how to right-align the text 'Hello, World!'.

const align = require('align-text');
const result = align('Hello, World!', { align: 'right' });
console.log(result);

Other packages similar to align-text

cli-table

The cli-table package is used to create tables in the console with various alignment options for text within the table cells. It provides more advanced table formatting capabilities compared to align-text, including support for table headers, column widths, and custom styles.

columnify

The columnify package formats data into columns with customizable alignment options. It is particularly useful for displaying tabular data in the console. Compared to align-text, columnify offers more flexibility in handling multiple columns and complex data structures.

string-width

The string-width package calculates the visual width of a string, taking into account characters with different widths. While it does not directly align text, it can be used in conjunction with other packages to ensure proper alignment by accurately measuring string lengths. It complements align-text by providing precise width calculations.

README

align-text

Align the text in a string.

Follow this project's author, Jon Schlinkert, for updates on this project and others.

Install

Install with npm:

$ npm install --save align-text

Usage

var align = require('align-text');

align(text, function_or_integer);

Params

• text can be a string or array. If a string is passed, a string will be returned. If an array is passed, an array will be returned.
• function|integer: if an integer, the text will be indented by that amount. If a transform function is passed, it must return an object with an integer property or an integer representing the amount of leading indentation to use as align loops over each line.

Example

align(text, 4);

Would align:

abc
abc
abc

To:

    abc
    abc
    abc

Transform function

params

The callback is used to determine the indentation of each line and gets the following params:

• len the length of the "current" line
• longest the length of the longest line
• line the current line (string) being aligned
• lines the array of all lines

return

The callback may return:

• an integer that represents the number of spaces to use for padding,
• or an object with the following properties:
  • indent: {Number} the amount of indentation to use. Default is 0 when an object is returned.
  • character: {String} the character to use for indentation. Default is '' (empty string) when an object is returned.
  • prefix: {String} leading characters to use at the beginning of each line. '' (empty string) when an object is returned.

Integer example:

// calculate half the difference between the length
// of the current line and the longest line
function centerAlign(len, longest, line, lines) {
  return Math.floor((longest - len) / 2);
}

Object example:

function centerAlign(len, longest, line, lines) {
  return {
    character: '\t',
    indent: Math.floor((longest - len) / 2),
    prefix: '~ ',
  }
}

Usage examples

Align text values in an array:

align([1, 2, 3, 100]);
//=> ['  1', '  2', '  3', '100']

Or do stuff like this:

Visit the example to see how this works.

Center align

Using the centerAlign function from above:

align(text, centerAlign);

Would align this text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
consectetur adipiscin
elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididun
ut labore et dolor
magna aliqua. Ut enim ad mini
veniam, quis

Resulting in this:

     Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
        consectetur adipiscing
elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
         ut labore et dolore
    magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
             veniam, quis

Customize

If you wanted to add more padding on the left, just pass the number in the callback.

For example, to add 4 spaces before every line:

function centerAlign(len, longest, line, lines) {
  return 4 + Math.floor((longest - len) / 2);
}

Would result in:

         Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
            consectetur adipiscing
    elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
             ut labore et dolore
        magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
                 veniam, quis

Bullets

align(text, function (len, max, line, lines) {
  return {prefix: ' - '};
});

Would return:

- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
- consectetur adipiscing
- elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
- ut labore et dolore
- magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
- veniam, quis

Different indent character

align(text, function (len, max, line, lines) {
  return { 
    indent: Math.floor((max - len) / 2), 
    character: '~', 
  };
});

Would return

~~~~~Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
~~~~~~~~consectetur adipiscing
elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
~~~~~~~~~ut labore et dolore
~~~~magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~veniam, quis

About

Contributing

Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.

Contributors

Commits	Contributor
14	jonschlinkert
2	shinnn

Building docs

(This project's readme.md is generated by verb, please don't edit the readme directly. Any changes to the readme must be made in the .verb.md readme template.)

To generate the readme, run the following command:

$ npm install -g verbose/verb#dev verb-generate-readme && verb

Running tests

Running and reviewing unit tests is a great way to get familiarized with a library and its API. You can install dependencies and run tests with the following command:

$ npm install && npm test

Author

Jon Schlinkert

• github/jonschlinkert
• twitter/jonschlinkert

License

Copyright © 2017, Jon Schlinkert. Released under the MIT License.

---

This file was generated by verb-generate-readme, v0.6.0, on September 13, 2017.