How can I align the columns of tables in Bash?

Solution 1:

Use the column command:

column -t -s' ' filename

Solution 2:

printf is great, but people forget about it.

$ for num in 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000; do printf "%10s %s\n" $num "foobar"; done
         1 foobar
        10 foobar
       100 foobar
      1000 foobar
     10000 foobar
    100000 foobar
   1000000 foobar

$ for((i=0;i<array_size;i++));
do
    printf "%10s %10d %10s" stringarray[$i] numberarray[$i] anotherfieldarray[%i]
done

Notice I used %10s for strings. %s is the important part. It tells it to use a string. The 10 in the middle says how many columns it is to be. %d is for numerics (digits).

man 1 printf for more info.

Solution 3:

function printTable()
{
    local -r delimiter="${1}"
    local -r data="$(removeEmptyLines "${2}")"

    if [[ "${delimiter}" != '' && "$(isEmptyString "${data}")" = 'false' ]]
    then
        local -r numberOfLines="$(wc -l <<< "${data}")"

        if [[ "${numberOfLines}" -gt '0' ]]
        then
            local table=''
            local i=1

            for ((i = 1; i <= "${numberOfLines}"; i = i + 1))
            do
                local line=''
                line="$(sed "${i}q;d" <<< "${data}")"

                local numberOfColumns='0'
                numberOfColumns="$(awk -F "${delimiter}" '{print NF}' <<< "${line}")"

                # Add Line Delimiter

                if [[ "${i}" -eq '1' ]]
                then
                    table="${table}$(printf '%s#+' "$(repeatString '#+' "${numberOfColumns}")")"
                fi

                # Add Header Or Body

                table="${table}\n"

                local j=1

                for ((j = 1; j <= "${numberOfColumns}"; j = j + 1))
                do
                    table="${table}$(printf '#| %s' "$(cut -d "${delimiter}" -f "${j}" <<< "${line}")")"
                done

                table="${table}#|\n"

                # Add Line Delimiter

                if [[ "${i}" -eq '1' ]] || [[ "${numberOfLines}" -gt '1' && "${i}" -eq "${numberOfLines}" ]]
                then
                    table="${table}$(printf '%s#+' "$(repeatString '#+' "${numberOfColumns}")")"
                fi
            done

            if [[ "$(isEmptyString "${table}")" = 'false' ]]
            then
                echo -e "${table}" | column -s '#' -t | awk '/^\+/{gsub(" ", "-", $0)}1'
            fi
        fi
    fi
}

function removeEmptyLines()
{
    local -r content="${1}"

    echo -e "${content}" | sed '/^\s*$/d'
}

function repeatString()
{
    local -r string="${1}"
    local -r numberToRepeat="${2}"

    if [[ "${string}" != '' && "${numberToRepeat}" =~ ^[1-9][0-9]*$ ]]
    then
        local -r result="$(printf "%${numberToRepeat}s")"
        echo -e "${result// /${string}}"
    fi
}

function isEmptyString()
{
    local -r string="${1}"

    if [[ "$(trimString "${string}")" = '' ]]
    then
        echo 'true' && return 0
    fi

    echo 'false' && return 1
}

function trimString()
{
    local -r string="${1}"

    sed 's,^[[:blank:]]*,,' <<< "${string}" | sed 's,[[:blank:]]*$,,'
}

SAMPLE RUNS

$ cat data-1.txt
HEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3

$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-1.txt)"
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| HEADER 1  | HEADER 2  | HEADER 3  |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+

$ cat data-2.txt
HEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3
data 1,data 2,data 3

$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-2.txt)"
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| HEADER 1  | HEADER 2  | HEADER 3  |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| data 1    | data 2    | data 3    |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+

$ cat data-3.txt
HEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3
data 1,data 2,data 3
data 4,data 5,data 6

$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-3.txt)"
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| HEADER 1  | HEADER 2  | HEADER 3  |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| data 1    | data 2    | data 3    |
| data 4    | data 5    | data 6    |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+

$ cat data-4.txt
HEADER
data

$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-4.txt)"
+---------+
| HEADER  |
+---------+
| data    |
+---------+

$ cat data-5.txt
HEADER

data 1

data 2

$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-5.txt)"
+---------+
| HEADER  |
+---------+
| data 1  |
| data 2  |
+---------+

REF LIB at: https://github.com/gdbtek/linux-cookbooks/blob/master/libraries/util.bash

Solution 4:

To have the exact same output as you need, you need to format the file like this:

a very long string..........\t     112232432\t     anotherfield\n
a smaller string\t      123124343\t     anotherfield\n

And then using:

$ column -t -s $'\t' FILE
a very long string..........  112232432  anotherfield
a smaller string              123124343  anotherfield