Pretty print a table in C++

Question

I am looking for a library similar to prettytable but in C++

http://code.google.com/p/prettytable/

I know how to generate one myself using either printf or iostream. However, I would like to know if there is a library for this.

I am interested only in writing this ASCII table to the console.

Preferably something like:

std::vector<std::string> headers;
headers.push_back("My Awesome Header 1");
headers.push_back("My Awesome Header 2");
headers.push_back("My Awesome Header 3");


PrettyTablePrinter ptp;
ptp.SetHeaders(headers);
// Set some other options here
ptp.AddRow(data[0]);
ptp.AddRow(data[1]);
ptp.AddRow(data[2]);

ptp.Print(&std::cout);

Openhearted

Related: https://mcmap.net/q/668884/-printing-2d-table-headers/… – Songsongbird

Answer 1

Since I have not found a good C++ solution, I have written one for you all

https://github.com/dattanchu/bprinter/wiki

Openhearted

Answer 2

I wasn't satisfied with any of the ones I found online so I wrote my own: https://github.com/friedmud/variadic_table

It uses variadic templates to allow each column to hold a different type. It also only requires C++11.

VariadicTable<std::string, double, int, std::string> vt({"Name", "Weight", "Age", "Brother"});

vt.addRow({"Cody", 180.2, 40, "John"});
vt.addRow({"David", 175.3, 38, "Andrew"});
vt.addRow({"Robert", 140.3, 27, "Fande"});

vt.print();

This will output:

--------------------------------------
| Name |  Weight  |    Age   |Brother|
--------------------------------------
|Cody  |     180.2|        40|John   |
|David |     175.3|        38|Andrew |
|Robert|     140.3|        27|Fande  |
--------------------------------------

This is actively being used in a large software project - so it will be maintained and developed over time. Feel free to submit issues / PRs

Corinthian

The repository once cloned have 20+ errors just when I run make. – Kipkipling

it's also header only! – Spense

Nice that it's header only, but the GNU licence is a bummer for non-private use :( – Intonation

Answer 3

To my knowledge, you have three major options here :

• A "C way" through the use of printf with width specifiers
• A "C++ way" through the use of stream manipulators (in particular std::setw and std::setfill)
• An intermediate way using Boost.Format which allow you to use printf style formatters with streams.

I'm not aware of any library which could help you in the "table design" more than this.

Raneeraney

Answer 4

While not exactly what you're looking for, Boost.Spirit contains a library (named Karma) usable to generate this kind of output fairly easily. The docs are here.

Gooseberry

Answer 5

LibFort

It's Fantastic, they have Several cool table styles too.

https://github.com/seleznevae/libfort

Mediation

Could not get this to work with Visual Studio / Windows. Yes, I ran CMAKE, but encountered lots of compile errors. – Mohican

Answer 6

In my opinion, these 2 libraries are the best options today :-

1. tabulate
2. libfort

libfort is comparatively simpler and smaller since it's written in C, whereas tabulate is highly customisable and is written in C++

Elke

Thank you very much for your answer. I just wanted a simple library and libfort provided everything I needed, excellent library. – Drabbet

Answer 7

You may achieve it using ncurses library. Its C library.

Decemvir

Answer 8

The most generic way to format any output of all, in fact the only way to do so within the C++ language is with I/O Manipulators.
http://www.fredosaurus.com/notes-cpp/io/omanipulators.html

Borisborja