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

Answer 1

Too old, but i went trough the same now and used str_pad, just set the lenght as the size of your column and thats it

regards.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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 4

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 5

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 6

The CLIFramework table generator helps you get the job done very easily and it supports text alignment, text color, background color, text wrapping, text overflow handling.. etc

Here is the tutorial: https://github.com/c9s/CLIFramework/wiki/Using-Table-Component

Sample code: https://github.com/c9s/CLIFramework/blob/master/example/table.php

use CLIFramework\Component\Table\Table;

$table = new Table;
$table->setHeaders([ 'Published Date', 'Title', 'Description' ]);
$table->addRow(array( 
    "September 16, 2014",
    "Title",
    "Description",
    29.5
));
$table->addRow(array( 
    "November 4, 2014",
    "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products",
    ["Why do some products capture widespread attention whil..."],
    99,
));
echo $table->render();