easy-table

What is easy-table?

The easy-table npm package is a simple and flexible library for creating and formatting text tables in Node.js. It allows you to easily create tables, format columns, and perform various operations on table data.

What are easy-table's main functionalities?

Creating a Simple Table

This feature allows you to create a simple table from an array of objects. Each object represents a row in the table, and the properties of the objects are the columns.

const Table = require('easy-table');

let data = [
  { name: 'John', age: 25, city: 'New York' },
  { name: 'Jane', age: 30, city: 'San Francisco' },
  { name: 'Mike', age: 27, city: 'Chicago' }
];

let t = new Table;
data.forEach(function(person) {
  t.cell('Name', person.name);
  t.cell('Age', person.age);
  t.cell('City', person.city);
  t.newRow();
});

console.log(t.toString());

Formatting Columns

This feature allows you to format columns in the table. In this example, the 'Age' column is formatted as a number with no decimal places.

const Table = require('easy-table');

let data = [
  { name: 'John', age: 25, city: 'New York' },
  { name: 'Jane', age: 30, city: 'San Francisco' },
  { name: 'Mike', age: 27, city: 'Chicago' }
];

let t = new Table;
data.forEach(function(person) {
  t.cell('Name', person.name);
  t.cell('Age', person.age, Table.number(0));
  t.cell('City', person.city);
  t.newRow();
});

console.log(t.toString());

Sorting Rows

This feature allows you to sort the rows in the table. In this example, the rows are sorted by the 'Age' column in descending order.

const Table = require('easy-table');

let data = [
  { name: 'John', age: 25, city: 'New York' },
  { name: 'Jane', age: 30, city: 'San Francisco' },
  { name: 'Mike', age: 27, city: 'Chicago' }
];

let t = new Table;
data.forEach(function(person) {
  t.cell('Name', person.name);
  t.cell('Age', person.age);
  t.cell('City', person.city);
  t.newRow();
});

t.sort(['Age|des']);

console.log(t.toString());

Other packages similar to easy-table

cli-table

cli-table is another popular package for creating text-based tables in Node.js. It offers more customization options for table borders and styles compared to easy-table, but it may be slightly more complex to use.

table

The table package provides a more feature-rich and flexible way to create tables in Node.js. It supports various table styles, alignment options, and even table cell spanning. It is more powerful but also more complex than easy-table.

ascii-table

ascii-table is a lightweight package for creating ASCII tables in Node.js. It is simpler and less feature-rich compared to easy-table, making it suitable for basic table creation needs.

README

Easy table

Simple and nice utility for rendering text tables with javascript.

Usage

var Table = require('easy-table');

var data = [
    { id: 123123, desc: 'Something awesome', price: 1000.00 },
    { id: 245452, desc: 'Very interesting book', price: 11.45},
    { id: 232323, desc: 'Yet another product', price: 555.55 }
]

var t = new Table;

data.forEach(function (product) {
    t.cell('Product Id', product.id);
    t.cell('Description', product.desc);
    t.cell('Price, USD', product.price.toFixed(2), Table.padLeft);
    t.newLine();
});

console.log(t.toString());

The script above will render:

Product Id  Description            Price, USD
----------  ---------------------  ----------
123123      Something awesome         1000.00
245452      Very interesting book       11.45
232323      Yet another product        555.55

The full signature of .cell() method is:

t.cell(column, value, printer, width)

Where column is a column name to print, value - cell's value, printer is a function with which cell's value should be printed, width - column's width.

By default column's width is ajusted to fit the longest value, but if specified explicitly it is fixed and any non-fitting cell is truncated.

Cell's value rendering occures in two phases. At the first phase printer function is called to get minimal width required to fit cell correctly, at the second phase printer function is called to get actual string to render with additional width parameter supplied.

You can sort a table by calling .sort(), and optionally passing in a list of column names to sort on (by default uses all columns), or a custom comparator function. It is also possible to specify the sort order. For example:

t.sort(['Price, USD|des']) // will sort in descending order
t.sort(['Price, USD|asc']) // will sort in ascending order
t.sort(['Price, USD']) // sorts in ascending order by default

Installation

Just install from the npm repository with:

$ npm install easy-table

Changelog

0.0.2

• Added: .sort() function