Create nice column output in python

Question

I am trying to create a nice column list in python for use with commandline admin tools which I create   Basicly  I want a list like      a    b    c      aaaaaaaaaa    b    c      a    bbbbbbbbbb    c      To turn into   a            b            c aaaaaaaaaa   b            c a            bbbbbbbbbb   c   Using plain tabs wont do the trick here because I don t know the longest data in each row   This is the same behavior as  column -t  in Linux      echo -e  a b c naaaaaaaaaa b c na bbbbbbbbbb c  a b c aaaaaaaaaa b c a bbbbbbbbbb c    echo -e  a b c naaaaaaaaaa b c na bbbbbbbbbb c    column -t a           b           c aaaaaaaaaa  b           c a           bbbbbbbbbb  c   I have looked around for various python libraries to do this but can t find anything useful

User · Answer

pandas based solution with creating dataframe   import pandas as pd l      a    b    c      aaaaaaaaaa    b    c      a    bbbbbbbbbb    c    df   pd DataFrame l   print df              0           1  2 0           a           b  c 1  aaaaaaaaaa           b  c 2           a  bbbbbbbbbb  c   To remove index and header values to create output what you want you could use to string method   result   df to string index False  header False   print result            a           b  c  aaaaaaaaaa           b  c           a  bbbbbbbbbb  c

User · Answer

Scolp is a new library that lets you pretty print streaming columnar data easily while auto-adjusting column width    Disclaimer  I am the author

User · Answer

You can prepare your data and pass it to the real column utility  Let s assume you have printed data to file  tmp filename txt with the tab as a delimeter  Then you can columnize it like this  import subprocess  result   subprocess run  quot cat  tmp filename txt   column -N   quot col 1 col 2 col 3  quot  -t -s  t  -R 2 3 quot   shell True  stdout subprocess PIPE  print result stdout decode  quot utf-8 quot     As you can see  you can use features of column utility  such as right aligning

User · Answer

I found this answer super-helpful and elegant  originally from here   matrix      A    B      C    D     print   n  join    t  join  str cell  for cell in row   for row in matrix      Output  A   B C   D

User · Answer

This is a little late to the party  and a shameless plug for a package I wrote  but you can also check out the Columnar package   It takes a list of lists of input and a list of headers and outputs a table-formatted string  This snippet creates a docker-esque table   from columnar import columnar  headers     name    id    host    notes    data           busybox    c3c37d5d-38d2-409f-8d02-600fd9d51239    linuxnode-1-292735    Test server           alpine-python    6bb77855-0fda-45a9-b553-e19e1a795f1e    linuxnode-2-249253    The one that runs python           redis    afb648ba-ac97-4fb2-8953-9a5b5f39663e    linuxnode-3-3416918    For queues and stuff           app-server    b866cd0f-bf80-40c7-84e3-c40891ec68f9    linuxnode-4-295918    A popular destination           nginx    76fea0f0-aa53-4911-b7e4-fae28c2e469b    linuxnode-5-292735    Traffic Cop       table   columnar data  headers  no borders True  print table      Or you can get a little fancier with colors and borders     To read more about the column-sizing algorithm and see the rest of the API you can check out the link above or see the Columnar GitHub Repo

User · Answer

Wow  only 17 answers  The zen of python says  quot There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it  quot  So here is an 18th way to do it  The tabulate package supports a bunch of data types that it can display as tables  here is a simple example adapted from their docs  from tabulate import tabulate  table      quot Sun quot  696000 1989100000              quot Earth quot  6371 5973 6              quot Moon quot  1737 73 5              quot Mars quot  3390 641 85    print tabulate table  headers   quot Planet quot   quot R  km  quot    quot mass  x 10 29 kg  quot      which outputs Planet      R  km     mass  x 10 29 kg  --------  --------  ------------------- Sun         696000           1 9891e 09 Earth         6371        5973 6 Moon          1737          73 5 Mars          3390         641 85

User · Answer

This sets independent  best-fit column widths based on the max-metric used in other answers   data      a    b    c      aaaaaaaaaa    b    c      a    bbbbbbbbbb    c    padding   2 col widths    max len w  for w in  r cn  for r in data     padding for cn in range len data 0     format string                           format  col widths  for row in data      print format string format  row

User · Answer

data      a    b    c      aaaaaaaaaa    b    c      a    bbbbbbbbbb    c     col width   max len word  for row in data for word in row    2    padding for row in data      print    join word ljust col width  for word in row   a            b            c             aaaaaaaaaa   b            c             a            bbbbbbbbbb   c      What this does is calculate the longest data entry to determine the column width  then use  ljust   to add the necessary padding when printing out each column

User · Answer

I realize this question is old but I didn t understand Antak s answer and didn t want to use a library so I rolled my own solution   Solution assumes records is a 2D array  records are all the same length  and that fields are all strings   def stringifyRecords records       column widths    0    len records 0       for record in records          for i  field in enumerate record               width   len field              if width  gt  column widths i   column widths i    width      s          for record in records          for column width  field in zip column widths  record               s    field ljust column width 1          s      n       return s

User · Answer

Here is a variation of the Shawn Chin s answer  The width is fixed per column  not over all columns  There is also a border below the first row and between the columns   icontract library is used to enforce the contracts     icontract pre      lambda table  not table or all len row     len table 0   for row in table    icontract post lambda table  result  result       if not table else True   icontract post lambda result  not result endswith   n    def format table table  List List str    - gt  str              Format the table as equal-spaced columns        param table  rows of cells      return  table as string             cols   len table 0        col widths    max len row i   for row in table  for i in range cols        lines         type  List str      for i  row in enumerate table           parts         type  List str           for cell  width in zip row  col widths               parts append cell ljust width            line         join parts          lines append line           if i    0              border         type  List str               for width in col widths                  border append  -    width               lines append  - -  join border        result     n  join lines       return result   Here is an example    gt  gt  gt  table      column 0    another column 1      00    01      10    11     gt  gt  gt  result   packagery  format table table table   gt  gt  gt  print result  column 0   another column 1 --------- ----------------- 00         01               10         11

User · Answer

I came here with the same requirements but  lvc and  Preet s answers seems more inline with what column -t produces in that columns have different widths    gt  gt  gt  rows          a              b               c       d                     aaaaaaaaaa     b               c       d                     a              bbbbbbbbbb      c       d                          gt  gt  gt  widths    max map len  col   for col in zip  rows    gt  gt  gt  for row in rows          print      join  val ljust width  for val  width in zip row  widths        a           b           c  d aaaaaaaaaa  b           c  d a           bbbbbbbbbb  c  d

User · Answer

You have to do this with 2 passes    get the maximum width of each column   formatting the columns using our knowledge of max width from the first pass using str ljust   and str rjust

User · Answer

A slight variation on a previous answer  I don t have enough rep to comment on it   The format library lets you specify the width and alignment of an element but not where it starts  ie  you can say  be 20 columns wide  but not  start in column 20   Which leads to this issue   table data           a    b    c          aaaaaaaaaa    b    c           a    bbbbbbbbbb    c      print  first row      gt 20      gt 20      gt 20   format  table data 0    print  second row      gt 20      gt 20      gt 20   format  table data 1    print  third row      gt 20      gt 20      gt 20   format  table data 2      Output  first row                     a                    b                    c second row            aaaaaaaaaa                    b                    c third row                     a           bbbbbbbbbb                    c   The answer of course is to format the literal strings as well  which combines slightly weirdly with the format   table data           a    b    c          aaaaaaaaaa    b    c           a    bbbbbbbbbb    c      print f   first row     lt 20   table data 0  0    gt 20   table data 0  1    gt 20   table data 0  2    gt 20    print      lt 20      gt 20      gt 20      gt 20   format    second row     table data 1     print      lt 20      gt 20      gt 20      gt 20   format    third row     table data 1       Output  first row                               a                    b                    c second row                     aaaaaaaaaa                    b                    c third row                      aaaaaaaaaa                    b                    c

User · Answer

updated  Franck Dernoncourt fancy recipe to be python 3 and PEP8 compliant   import io import math import operator import re import functools  from itertools import zip longest   def indent      rows      has header False      header char  -       delim            justify  left       separate rows False      prefix         postfix         wrapfunc lambda x  x            Indents a table by column         - rows  A sequence of sequences of items  one sequence per row         - hasHeader  True if the first row consists of the columns  names         - headerChar  Character to be used for the row separator line           if hasHeader  True or separateRows  True          - delim  The column delimiter         - justify  Determines how are data justified in their column           Valid values are  left   right  and  center          - separateRows  True if rows are to be separated by a line          of  headerChar s         - prefix  A string prepended to each printed row         - postfix  A string appended to each printed row         - wrapfunc  A function f text  for wrapping text  each element in          the table is first wrapped by this function            closure for breaking logical rows to physical  using wrapfunc     def row wrapper row           new rows    wrapfunc item  split   n   for item in row          return   substr or    for substr in item  for item in zip longest  new rows          break each logical row into one or more physical ones     logical rows    row wrapper row  for row in rows        columns of physical rows     columns   zip longest  functools reduce operator add  logical rows         get the maximum of each column by the string length of its items     max widths    max  len str item   for item in column   for column in columns      row separator   header char             len prefix    len postfix    sum max widths    len delim     len max widths  - 1              select the appropriate justify method     justify     center   str center   right   str rjust   left   str ljust           justify lower             output   io StringIO       if separate rows          print output  row separator      for physicalRows in logical rows          for row in physicalRows              print  output  prefix   delim join                   justify str item   width  for  item  width  in zip row  max widths                   postfix          if separate rows or has header              print output  row separator              has header   False     return output getvalue       written by Mike Brown   http   aspn activestate com ASPN Cookbook Python Recipe 148061 def wrap onspace text  width               A word-wrap function that preserves existing line breaks     and most spaces in the text  Expects that existing line     breaks are posix newlines   n               return functools reduce          lambda line  word  i width width    s s s                          line                 n                                         len line line rfind   n     1       len word split   n   1  0                        gt   i width                                              word                     text split               def wrap onspace strict text  i width          Similar to wrap onspace  but enforces the width constraint         words longer than width are split         word regex   re compile r  S     str i width    r          return wrap onspace          word regex sub lambda m  wrap always m group    i width   text   i width         def wrap always text  width          A simple word-wrap function that wraps text on exactly width characters         It doesn t split the text in words         return   n  join                        text width   i   width    i   1               for i in range int math ceil 1 0   len text    width                      if   name         main         labels     First Name    Last Name    Age    Position       data      John Smith 24 Software Engineer            Mary Brohowski 23 Sales Manager            Aristidis Papageorgopoulos 28 Senior Reseacher        rows    row strip   split      for row in data splitlines         print  Without wrapping function n       print indent  labels    rows  has header True          test indent with different wrapping functions     width   10     for wrapper in  wrap always  wrap onspace  wrap onspace strict           print  Wrapping function   s x width  d  n     wrapper   name    width            print              indent                   labels    rows                  has header True                  separate rows True                  prefix                       postfix                       wrapfunc lambda x  wrapper x  width                                  output              Without wrapping function             First Name   Last Name          Age   Position       -------------------------------------------------------       John         Smith              24    Software Engineer       Mary         Brohowski          23    Sales Manager       Aristidis    Papageorgopoulos   28    Senior Reseacher             Wrapping function  wrap always x width 10              ----------------------------------------------         First Name   Last Name    Age   Position           ----------------------------------------------         John         Smith        24    Software E                                           ngineer            ----------------------------------------------         Mary         Brohowski    23    Sales Mana                                           ger                ----------------------------------------------         Aristidis    Papageorgo   28    Senior Res                        poulos             eacher             ----------------------------------------------             Wrapping function  wrap onspace x width 10              ---------------------------------------------------         First Name   Last Name          Age   Position          ---------------------------------------------------         John         Smith              24    Software                                                  Engineer          ---------------------------------------------------         Mary         Brohowski          23    Sales                                                     Manager           ---------------------------------------------------         Aristidis    Papageorgopoulos   28    Senior                                                    Reseacher         ---------------------------------------------------             Wrapping function  wrap onspace strict x width 10              ---------------------------------------------         First Name   Last Name    Age   Position          ---------------------------------------------         John         Smith        24    Software                                            Engineer          ---------------------------------------------         Mary         Brohowski    23    Sales                                               Manager           ---------------------------------------------         Aristidis    Papageorgo   28    Senior                           poulos             Reseacher         ---------------------------------------------

User · Answer

Since Python 2 6   you can use a format string in the following way to set the columns to a minimum of 20 characters and align text to right   table data           a    b    c          aaaaaaaaaa    b    c           a    bbbbbbbbbb    c     for row in table data      print      gt 20      gt 20      gt 20   format  row     Output                  a                    b                    c       aaaaaaaaaa                    b                    c                a           bbbbbbbbbb                    c

User · Answer

For lazy people  that are using Python 3   and Pandas Geopandas  universal simple in-class approach  for  normal  script just remove self    Function colorize       def colorize self s color           s   color str s    033 0m          return s   Header   print   0  lt 23   1  gt 24   2  gt 26   3  gt 26   4  gt 11   5  gt 11   format  Road name   Classification   Function   Form of road   Length   Distance       and then data from Pandas Geopandas dataframe               for index  row in clipped iterrows                    rdName        self colorize row  name1     033 32m                   rdClass       self colorize row  roadClassification     033 93m                   rdFunction    self colorize row  roadFunction     033 33m                   rdForm        self colorize row  formOfWay     033 94m                   rdLength      self colorize row  length     033 97m                   rdDistance    self colorize row  distance     033 96m                   print   0  lt 30   1  gt 35   2  gt 35   3  gt 35   4  gt 20   5  gt 20   format rdName rdClass rdFunction rdForm rdLength rdDistance      Meaning of  0  lt 30   1  gt 35   2  gt 35   3  gt 35   4  gt 20   5  gt 20    0  1  2  3  4  5 -  columns  there are 6 in total in this case  30  35  20 -  width of column  note that you ll have to add length of  033 96m - this for Python is a string as well   just experiment      gt    lt  -  justify  right  left  there is   for filling with zeros as well      If you want to distinct e g  max value  you ll have to switch to special Pandas style function  but suppose that s far enough to present data on terminal window    Result

User · Answer

Transposing the columns like that is a job for zip    gt  gt  gt  a      a    b    c      aaaaaaaaaa    b    c      a    bbbbbbbbbb    c     gt  gt  gt  list zip  a      a    aaaaaaaaaa    a      b    b    bbbbbbbbbb      c    c    c      To find the required length of each column  you can use max    gt  gt  gt  trans a   zip  a   gt  gt  gt   max len c  for c in b  for b in trans a   10  10  1    Which you can use  with suitable padding  to construct strings to pass to print    gt  gt  gt  col lenghts    max len c  for c in b  for b in trans a   gt  gt  gt  padding         You might want more  gt  gt  gt  padding join s ljust l  for s l in zip a 0   col lenghts    a          b          c

User · Answer

To get fancier tables like  ---------------------------------------------------   First Name   Last Name          Age   Position    ---------------------------------------------------   John         Smith              24    Software                                            Engineer    ---------------------------------------------------   Mary         Brohowski          23    Sales                                               Manager     ---------------------------------------------------   Aristidis    Papageorgopoulos   28    Senior                                              Reseacher   ---------------------------------------------------   you can use this Python recipe       From http   code activestate com recipes 267662-table-indentation  PSF License     import cStringIO operator  def indent rows  hasHeader False  headerChar  -   delim        justify  left              separateRows False  prefix     postfix     wrapfunc lambda x x          Indents a table by column         - rows  A sequence of sequences of items  one sequence per row         - hasHeader  True if the first row consists of the columns  names         - headerChar  Character to be used for the row separator line           if hasHeader  True or separateRows  True          - delim  The column delimiter         - justify  Determines how are data justified in their column            Valid values are  left   right  and  center          - separateRows  True if rows are to be separated by a line          of  headerChar s         - prefix  A string prepended to each printed row         - postfix  A string appended to each printed row         - wrapfunc  A function f text  for wrapping text  each element in          the table is first wrapped by this function           closure for breaking logical rows to physical  using wrapfunc     def rowWrapper row           newRows    wrapfunc item  split   n   for item in row          return   substr or    for substr in item  for item in map None  newRows         break each logical row into one or more physical ones     logicalRows    rowWrapper row  for row in rows        columns of physical rows     columns   map None  reduce operator add logicalRows         get the maximum of each column by the string length of its items     maxWidths    max  len str item   for item in column   for column in columns      rowSeparator   headerChar    len prefix    len postfix    sum maxWidths                                       len delim   len maxWidths -1         select the appropriate justify method     justify     center  str center   right  str rjust   left  str ljust  justify lower        output cStringIO StringIO       if separateRows  print  gt  gt  output  rowSeparator     for physicalRows in logicalRows          for row in physicalRows              print  gt  gt  output                    prefix                     delim join  justify str item  width  for  item width  in zip row maxWidths                        postfix         if separateRows or hasHeader  print  gt  gt  output  rowSeparator  hasHeader False     return output getvalue      written by Mike Brown   http   aspn activestate com ASPN Cookbook Python Recipe 148061 def wrap onspace text  width               A word-wrap function that preserves existing line breaks     and most spaces in the text  Expects that existing line     breaks are posix newlines   n               return reduce lambda line  word  width width    s s s                       line                        n   len line line rfind   n   1                               len word split   n  1  0                                   gt   width                       word                     text split                          import re def wrap onspace strict text  width          Similar to wrap onspace  but enforces the width constraint         words longer than width are split         wordRegex   re compile r  S   str width  r          return wrap onspace wordRegex sub lambda m  wrap always m group   width  text  width   import math def wrap always text  width          A simple word-wrap function that wraps text on exactly width characters         It doesn t split the text in words         return   n  join   text width i width  i 1                            for i in xrange int math ceil 1  len text  width        if   name         main         labels     First Name    Last Name    Age    Position       data            John Smith 24 Software Engineer        Mary Brohowski 23 Sales Manager        Aristidis Papageorgopoulos 28 Senior Reseacher        rows    row strip   split       for row in data splitlines         print  Without wrapping function n      print indent  labels  rows  hasHeader True        test indent with different wrapping functions     width   10     for wrapper in  wrap always wrap onspace wrap onspace strict           print  Wrapping function   s x width  d  n     wrapper   name   width          print indent  labels  rows  hasHeader True  separateRows True                       prefix       postfix                            wrapfunc lambda x  wrapper x width          output             Without wrapping function            First Name   Last Name          Age   Position               -------------------------------------------------------      John         Smith              24    Software Engineer      Mary         Brohowski          23    Sales Manager          Aristidis    Papageorgopoulos   28    Senior Reseacher             Wrapping function  wrap always x width 10             ----------------------------------------------        First Name   Last Name    Age   Position          ----------------------------------------------        John         Smith        24    Software E                                          ngineer           ----------------------------------------------        Mary         Brohowski    23    Sales Mana                                          ger               ----------------------------------------------        Aristidis    Papageorgo   28    Senior Res                       poulos             eacher            ----------------------------------------------            Wrapping function  wrap onspace x width 10             ---------------------------------------------------        First Name   Last Name          Age   Position         ---------------------------------------------------        John         Smith              24    Software                                                 Engineer         ---------------------------------------------------        Mary         Brohowski          23    Sales                                                    Manager          ---------------------------------------------------        Aristidis    Papageorgopoulos   28    Senior                                                   Reseacher        ---------------------------------------------------            Wrapping function  wrap onspace strict x width 10             ---------------------------------------------        First Name   Last Name    Age   Position         ---------------------------------------------        John         Smith        24    Software                                           Engineer         ---------------------------------------------        Mary         Brohowski    23    Sales                                              Manager          ---------------------------------------------        Aristidis    Papageorgo   28    Senior                          poulos             Reseacher        ---------------------------------------------   The Python recipe page contains a few improvements on it

[python] Create nice column output in python

Examples related to python

Examples related to string

Examples related to list