How to make alignment on console in php

Question

I am trying to run a script through command prompt in PHP and trying to show the result in tabular form. But due to different character length of words I am not able to show the result properly align.

I want result like this

Book                  ISBN      Department
Operating System      101       CS
C                     102       CS
java                  103       CS

Can anyone please help me to get this output like this in php on console.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

If you don't want (or not allowed for some reason) to use libraries, you can use standard php printf / sprintf functions.

The problem with them that if you have values with variable and non-limited width, then you will have to decide if long values will be truncated or break table's layout.

First case:

// fixed width
$mask = "|%5.5s |%-30.30s | x |\n";
printf($mask, 'Num', 'Title');
printf($mask, '1', 'A value that fits the cell');
printf($mask, '2', 'A too long value the end of which will be cut off');

The output is

|  Num |Title                          | x |
|    1 |A value that fits the cell     | x |
|    2 |A too long value the end of wh | x |

Second case:

// only min-width of cells is set
$mask = "|%5s |%-30s | x |\n";
printf($mask, 'Num', 'Title');
printf($mask, '1', 'A value that fits the cell');
printf($mask, '2', 'A too long value that will brake the table');

And here we get

|  Num |Title                          | x |
|    1 |A value that fits the cell     | x |
|    2 |A too long value that will brake the table | x |

If neither of that satisfies your needs and you really need a table with flowing width columns, than you have to calculate maximum width of values in each column. But that is how PEAR::Console_Table exactly works.

Answer 2

You can use PEAR::Console_Table:

Console_Table helps you to display tabular data on a terminal/shell/console.

Example:

require_once 'Console/Table.php';

$tbl = new Console_Table();

$tbl->setHeaders(array('Language', 'Year'));

$tbl->addRow(array('PHP', 1994));
$tbl->addRow(array('C',   1970));
$tbl->addRow(array('C++', 1983));

echo $tbl->getTable();

Output:

+----------+------+
| Language | Year |
+----------+------+
| PHP      | 1994 |
| C        | 1970 |
| C++      | 1983 |
+----------+------+

Answer 3

Your best option is to use the Pear Package Console_Table ( http://pear.php.net/package/Console_Table/ ).

To use - on a console you need to install the pear package, running:

pear install Console_Table

this should download the package and install. You can then use a sample script such as:

require_once 'Console/Table.php';

$tbl = new Console_Table();
$tbl->setHeaders(
    array('Language', 'Year')
);
$tbl->addRow(array('PHP', 1994));
$tbl->addRow(array('C',   1970));
$tbl->addRow(array('C++', 1983));

echo $tbl->getTable();

Answer 4

You could try the recent simple PHP library ConsoleTable if you don't want to use the standard PHP functions printf/sprintf or the pear package PEAR::Console_Table.

Example:

require_once 'ConsoleTable.php';

$table = new LucidFrame\Console\ConsoleTable();
$table
    ->addHeader('Language')
    ->addHeader('Year')
    ->addRow()
        ->addColumn('PHP')
        ->addColumn(1994)
    ->addRow()
        ->addColumn('C++')
        ->addColumn(1983)
    ->addRow()
        ->addColumn('C')
        ->addColumn(1970)
    ->display()
;

Output:

+----------+------+
| Language | Year |
+----------+------+
| PHP      | 1994 |
| C++      | 1983 |
| C        | 1970 |
+----------+------+

See more example usages at its github page.