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

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, Table.number(2))
  t.newRow()
})

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

t.printTransposed() returns

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

t.print() shows just rows you pushed and nothing more

123123  Something awesome      1000.00
245452  Very interesting book    11.45
232323  Yet another product     555.55

How it works

The full signature of .cell() is:

t.cell(column, value, printer)

Rendering occures in two phases. At the first phase printer is called to get the minimal width required to fit the cell content. At the second phase printer is called again with additional width parameter to get actual string to render.

For example, here is how currency printer might be defined

function currency(val, width) {
  var str = val.toFixed(2)
  return width ? Table.padLeft(str, width) : str
}

Table.print()

When you already have an array, explicit table instantiation and iteration becomes an overhead. For such cases it is convenient to use Table.print().

console.log(Table.print(data))

id      desc                   price
------  ---------------------  ------
123123  Something awesome      1000
245452  Very interesting book  11.45
232323  Yet another product    555.55

It is possible to pass some options

Table.print(data, {
  desc: {name: 'description'}
  price: {printer: Table.number(2)}
})

id      description            price
------  ---------------------  -------
123123  Something awesome      1000.00
245452  Very interesting book    11.45
232323  Yet another product     555.55

or have a full control over rendering

Table.print(data, function(item, cell) {
  cell('Product id', item.id)
  cell('Price, USD', item.price)
}, function(table) {
  return table.print()
})

Table.print() also accepts objects

Table.print(data[0])

id    : 123123
desc  : Something awesome
price : 1000

Sorting

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

Totaling

Easy table can help to calculate and render totals:

t.total('Price, USD')

Product Id  Description            Price, USD
----------  ---------------------  ----------
245452      Very interesting book       11.45
232323      Yet another product        555.55
123123      Something awesome         1000.00
----------  ---------------------  ----------
                                      1567.00

Here is a more elaborate example

t.total('Price, USD', {
  printer: Table.aggr.printer('Avg: ', currency),
  reduce: Table.aggr.avg,
  init: 0
})

// or alternatively

t.total('Price, USD', {
  printer: function(val, width) {
    return padLeft('Avg: ' + currency(val), width)
  },
  reduce: function(acc, val, idx, len) {
    acc = acc + val
    return idx + 1 == len ? acc/len : acc
  }
})

Product Id  Description            Price, USD
----------  ---------------------  -----------
245452      Very interesting book        11.45
232323      Yet another product         555.55
123123      Something awesome          1000.00
----------  ---------------------  -----------
                                   Avg: 522.33

Installation

via npm

$ npm install easy-table

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2015 Eldar Gabdullin [e-mail]

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.