What is cli-table3?
The cli-table3 npm package is a utility for rendering Unicode-aided tables on the command line from your node.js scripts. It is a fork of the original cli-table package and provides additional features and bug fixes. It allows for easy table creation with customizable characters for the border and columns, as well as alignment and color options for the text within the cells.
What are cli-table3's main functionalities?
Basic Table Creation
This feature allows you to create a simple table with rows and columns. The code sample demonstrates how to instantiate a new table, add rows to it, and then print it to the console.
const Table = require('cli-table3');
const table = new Table();
table.push(
['First column', 'Second column'],
['First row', 'Second row']
);
console.log(table.toString());
Custom Table Styling
This feature allows for customization of the table's appearance. The code sample shows how to create a table with custom border characters and styles.
const Table = require('cli-table3');
const table = new Table({
style: { head: [], border: [] },
chars: {
'top': '═', 'top-mid': '╤', 'top-left': '╔', 'top-right': '╗',
'bottom': '═', 'bottom-mid': '╧', 'bottom-left': '╚', 'bottom-right': '╝',
'left': '║', 'left-mid': '╟', 'mid': '─', 'mid-mid': '┼',
'right': '║', 'right-mid': '╢', 'middle': '│'
}
});
table.push(
['First column', 'Second column'],
['First row', 'Second row']
);
console.log(table.toString());
Column Width and Alignment
This feature allows you to specify the width and alignment of columns. The code sample demonstrates setting the width of each column and aligning the text within them.
const Table = require('cli-table3');
const table = new Table({
colWidths: [20, 30],
colAligns: ['left', 'right'],
});
table.push(
['Left aligned', 'Right aligned'],
['Longer text in the first column', 'Text in the second column']
);
console.log(table.toString());
Other packages similar to cli-table3
table
The 'table' package is another popular choice for creating text-based tables in Node.js. It provides automatic text wrapping, spanning cells, and alignment, and is highly customizable. Compared to cli-table3, it might offer a more modern API and additional features for complex table creation.
ascii-table
Ascii-table is a small and simple package for creating ASCII tables. It is less feature-rich than cli-table3 but is straightforward to use for basic table needs. It lacks some of the advanced styling and customization options available in cli-table3.
easy-table
Easy-table is a minimalistic package that allows for quick table generation with a focus on simplicity and performance. It doesn't have as many styling options as cli-table3 but can be a good choice for simple tabular data representation.
cli-table3
![Build Status](https://github.com/cli-table/cli-table3/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg?branch=master)
This utility allows you to render unicode-aided tables on the command line from
your node.js scripts.
cli-table3
is based on (and api compatible with) the original cli-table,
and cli-table2, which are both
unmaintained. cli-table3
includes all the additional features from
cli-table2
.
![Screenshot](https://i.imgur.com/sYq4T.png)
Features not in the original cli-table
- Ability to make cells span columns and/or rows.
- Ability to set custom styles per cell (border characters/colors, padding, etc).
- Vertical alignment (top, bottom, center).
- Word wrapping options.
- More robust truncation of cell text that contains ansi color characters.
- Better handling of text color that spans multiple lines.
- API compatible with the original cli-table.
- Exhaustive test suite including the entire original cli-table test suite.
- Lots of examples auto-generated from the tests (basic, advanced).
Features
- Customizable characters that constitute the table.
- Color/background styling in the header through
colors.js
@colors/colors - Column width customization
- Text truncation based on predefined widths
- Text alignment (left, right, center)
- Padding (left, right)
- Easy-to-use API
Installation
npm install cli-table3
How to use
A portion of the unit test suite is used to generate examples:
This package is api compatible with the original cli-table.
So all the original documentation still applies (copied below).
Horizontal Tables
var Table = require('cli-table3');
var table = new Table({
head: ['TH 1 label', 'TH 2 label']
, colWidths: [100, 200]
});
table.push(
['First value', 'Second value']
, ['First value', 'Second value']
);
console.log(table.toString());
Vertical Tables
var Table = require('cli-table3');
var table = new Table();
table.push(
{ 'Some key': 'Some value' }
, { 'Another key': 'Another value' }
);
console.log(table.toString());
Cross Tables
Cross tables are very similar to vertical tables, with two key differences:
- They require a
head
setting when instantiated that has an empty string as the first header - The individual rows take the general form of { "Header": ["Row", "Values"] }
var Table = require('cli-table3');
var table = new Table({ head: ["", "Top Header 1", "Top Header 2"] });
table.push(
{ 'Left Header 1': ['Value Row 1 Col 1', 'Value Row 1 Col 2'] }
, { 'Left Header 2': ['Value Row 2 Col 1', 'Value Row 2 Col 2'] }
);
console.log(table.toString());
Custom styles
The chars
property controls how the table is drawn:
var table = new Table({
chars: { 'top': '═' , 'top-mid': '╤' , 'top-left': '╔' , 'top-right': '╗'
, 'bottom': '═' , 'bottom-mid': '╧' , 'bottom-left': '╚' , 'bottom-right': '╝'
, 'left': '║' , 'left-mid': '╟' , 'mid': '─' , 'mid-mid': '┼'
, 'right': '║' , 'right-mid': '╢' , 'middle': '│' }
});
table.push(
['foo', 'bar', 'baz']
, ['frob', 'bar', 'quuz']
);
console.log(table.toString());
Empty decoration lines will be skipped, to avoid vertical separator rows just
set the 'mid', 'left-mid', 'mid-mid', 'right-mid' to the empty string:
var table = new Table({ chars: {'mid': '', 'left-mid': '', 'mid-mid': '', 'right-mid': ''} });
table.push(
['foo', 'bar', 'baz']
, ['frobnicate', 'bar', 'quuz']
);
console.log(table.toString());
By setting all chars to empty with the exception of 'middle' being set to a
single space and by setting padding to zero, it's possible to get the most
compact layout with no decorations:
var table = new Table({
chars: { 'top': '' , 'top-mid': '' , 'top-left': '' , 'top-right': ''
, 'bottom': '' , 'bottom-mid': '' , 'bottom-left': '' , 'bottom-right': ''
, 'left': '' , 'left-mid': '' , 'mid': '' , 'mid-mid': ''
, 'right': '' , 'right-mid': '' , 'middle': ' ' },
style: { 'padding-left': 0, 'padding-right': 0 }
});
table.push(
['foo', 'bar', 'baz']
, ['frobnicate', 'bar', 'quuz']
);
console.log(table.toString());
Debugging
Later versions of cli-table3 supporting debugging your table data.
Enable and use debugging:
var table = new Table({ debug: 1 });
table.push([{}, {},}); // etc.
console.log(table.toString());
table.messages.forEach((message) => console.log(message));
If you are rendering multiple tables with debugging on run Table.reset()
after
rendering each table.
Build Targets
Clone the repository and run yarn install
to install all its submodules, then run one of the following commands:
Run the tests with coverage reports.
$ yarn test:coverage
Run the tests every time a file changes.
$ yarn test:watch
Update the documentation.
$ yarn docs
Credits
License
(The MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2014 James Talmage <james.talmage@jrtechnical.com>
Original cli-table code/documentation: Copyright (c) 2010 LearnBoost <dev@learnboost.com>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.