How to align the columns of tables in Bash?

Question

I'd like to output a table format text. What I tried to do was echo the elements of an array with '\t' but it was misaligned. my code

for((i=0;i<array_size;i++));
do
   echo stringarray[$i] $'\t' numberarray[$i] $'\t' anotherfieldarray[$i]
done;

My output

a very long string..........     112232432      anotherfield
a smaller string         123124343     anotherfield

Desired output

a very long string..........     112232432      anotherfield
a smaller string                 123124343      anotherfield

Answer 1

awk solution that deals with stdin

Since column is not POSIX, maybe this is:

mycolumn() (
  file="${1:--}"
  if [ "$file" = - ]; then
    file="$(mktemp)"
    cat >"${file}"
  fi
  awk '
  FNR == 1 { if (NR == FNR) next }
  NR == FNR {
    for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {
      l = length($i)
      if (w[i] < l)
        w[i] = l
    }
    next
  }
  {
    for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++)
      printf "%*s", w[i] + (i > 1 ? 1 : 0), $i
    print ""
  }
  ' "$file" "$file"
  if [ "$file" = - ]; then
    rm "$file"
  fi
)

Test:

printf '12 1234 1
12345678 1 123
1234 123456 123456
' > file

Test commands:

mycolumn file
mycolumn <file
mycolumn - <file

Output for all:

      12   1234      1
12345678      1    123
    1234 123456 123456

See also:

• Using awk to align columns in text file?
• AWK: go through the file twice, doing different tasks

Answer 2

It's easier than you wonder.

If you are working with a separated by semicolon file and header too:

$ (head -n1 file.csv && sort file.csv | grep -v <header>) | column -s";" -t

If you are working with array (using tab as separator):

for((i=0;i<array_size;i++));
do

   echo stringarray[$i] $'\t' numberarray[$i] $'\t' anotherfieldarray[$i] >> tmp_file.csv

done;

cat file.csv | column -t

Answer 3

Use column command:

column -t -s' ' filename

Answer 4

Not sure where you were running this, but the code you posted would not produce the output you gave, at least not in the bash that I'm familiar with.

Try this instead:

stringarray=('test' 'some thing' 'very long long long string' 'blah')
numberarray=(1 22 7777 8888888888)
anotherfieldarray=('other' 'mixed' 456 'data')
array_size=4

for((i=0;i<array_size;i++))
do
    echo ${stringarray[$i]} $'\x1d' ${numberarray[$i]} $'\x1d' ${anotherfieldarray[$i]}
done | column -t -s$'\x1d'

Note that I'm using the group seperator character (1d) intead of tab, because if you are getting these arrays from a file, they might contain tabs.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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