Line up columns of numbers (print output in table format)

Question

I have data (numbers) saved in the following format (example):

234 127 34 23 45567  
23 12 4 4 45  
23456 2 1 444 567  
...

Is there any python-way method to line up the numbers and get them as

  234  127  34   23  45567  
   23   12   4    4     45  
23456    2   1  444    567 

(I cannot predict the column size).

Answer 1

Here is a simple, self-contained example that shows how to format variable column widths:

data = '''\
234 127 34 23 45567
23 12 4 4 45
23456 2 1 444 567'''

# Split input data by row and then on spaces
rows = [ line.strip().split(' ') for line in data.split('\n') ]

# Reorganize data by columns
cols = zip(*rows)

# Compute column widths by taking maximum length of values per column
col_widths = [ max(len(value) for value in col) for col in cols ]

# Create a suitable format string
format = ' '.join(['%%%ds' % width for width in col_widths ])

# Print each row using the computed format
for row in rows:
  print format % tuple(row)

which outputs:

  234 127 34  23 45567
   23  12  4   4    45
23456   2  1 444   567

Answer 2

You need some way of finding the column size, maybe by reading all the data and finding the maximum width.

>>> line='234 127 34 23 45567'
>>> line.split()
['234', '127', '34', '23', '45567']
>>> max(map(len, line.split()))
5

Repeat over all lines, to find column size (e.g., 5). Constructing a formatted line with percent formatting is straightforward.

>>> colsize = 5
>>> ' '.join(('%*s' % (colsize, i) for i in line.split()))
'  234   127    34    23 45567'
>>> 

Answer 3

#!/usr/bin/env python

class ALIGN:
    LEFT, RIGHT = '-', ''

class Column(list):
    def __init__(self, name, data, align=ALIGN.RIGHT):
        list.__init__(self, data)
        self.name = name
        width = max(len(str(x)) for x in data + [name])
        self.format = ' %%%s%ds ' % (align, width)

class Table:
    def __init__(self, *columns):
        self.columns = columns
        self.length = max(len(x) for x in columns)
    def get_row(self, i=None):
        for x in self.columns:
            if i is None:
                yield x.format % x.name
            else:
                yield x.format % x[i]
    def get_rows(self):
        yield ' '.join(self.get_row(None))
        for i in range(0, self.length):
            yield ' '.join(self.get_row(i))

    def __str__(self):
        return '\n'.join(self.get_rows())   

For your example:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print Table(
        Column("", [234, 32, 23456]),
        Column("", [127, 12, 2]),
        Column("", [34, 4, 1]),
        Column("", [23, 4, 444]),
        Column("", [45567, 45, 567])
    )

It will yield:

   234   127   34    23   45567 
    32    12    4     4      45 
 23456     2    1   444     567 

Adapted from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/577202-render-tables-for-text-interface/