generate_table()

If you pass an unknown argument, "generate_table" will die with an error message.

• rows

  Takes an array reference which should contain one or more rows of data, where each row is an array reference.

• header_row

  If given a true value, the first row in the data will be interpreted as a header row, and separated from the rest of the table with a ruled line.

• separate_rows

  If given a true value, a separator line will be drawn between every row in the table, and a thicker line will be used for the header separator.

• top_and_tail

  If given a true value, then the top and bottom border lines will be skipped. This reduces the vertical height of the generated table.

  Added in 0.04.

• align

  This takes an array ref with one entry per column, to specify the alignment of that column. Legal values are 'l', 'c', and 'r'. You can also specify a single alignment for all columns. ANSI escape codes are handled.

  Added in 1.00.

• style

  Specifies the format of the output table. The default is 'classic', but other options are 'boxrule' and 'norule'.

  If you use the "boxrule" style, you'll probably need to run "binmode(STDOUT, ':utf8')".

  Added in 1.00.

• indent

  Specify an indent that should be prefixed to every line of the generated table. This can either be a string of spaces, or an integer giving the number of spaces wanted.

  Added in 1.00.

• compact

  If set to a true value then we omit the single space padding on either side of every column.

  Added in 1.00.

EXAMPLES

 generate_table(rows => $rows);

You get minimal ruling:

 +------------+---------+-------+
 | Pokemon    | Type    | Count |
 | Abra       | Psychic | 5     |
 | Ekans      | Poison  | 123   |
 | Feraligatr | Water   | 5678  |
 +------------+---------+-------+

If you want a separate header, set the header_row option to a true value, as shown in the SYNOPSIS.

To take up fewer lines, you can miss out the top and bottom rules, by setting "top_and_tail" to a true value:

 generate_table(rows => $rows, header_row => 1, top_and_tail => 1);

This will generate the following:

 | Pokemon    | Type    | Count |
 +------------+---------+-------+
 | Abra       | Psychic | 5     |
 | Ekans      | Poison  | 123   |
 | Feraligatr | Water   | 5678  |

If you want a more stylish looking table, set the "style" parameter to 'boxrule':

 binmode(STDOUT,':utf8');
 generate_table(rows => $rows, header_row => 1, style => 'boxrule');

This uses the ANSI box rule characters. Note that you will need to ensure UTF output.

 ┌────────────┬─────────┬───────┐
 │ Pokemon    │ Type    │ Count │
 ├────────────┼─────────┼───────┤
 │ Abra       │ Psychic │ 5     │
 │ Ekans      │ Poison  │ 123   │
 │ Feraligatr │ Water   │ 5678  │
 └────────────┴─────────┴───────┘

You might want to right-align numeric values:

 generate_table( ... , align => [qw/ l l r /] );

The "align" parameter can either take an arrayref, or a string with an alignment to apply to all columns:

 ┌────────────┬─────────┬───────┐
 │ Pokemon    │ Type    │ Count │
 ├────────────┼─────────┼───────┤
 │ Abra       │ Psychic │     5 │
 │ Ekans      │ Poison  │   123 │
 │ Feraligatr │ Water   │  5678 │
 └────────────┴─────────┴───────┘

If you're using the boxrule style, you might feel you can remove the padding on either side of every column, done by setting "compact" to a true value:

 ┌──────────┬───────┬─────┐
 │Pokemon   │Type   │Count│
 ├──────────┼───────┼─────┤
 │Abra      │Psychic│    5│
 │Ekans     │Poison │  123│
 │Feraligatr│Water  │ 5678│
 └──────────┴───────┴─────┘

You can also ask for a rule between each row, in which case the header rule becomes stronger. This works best when combined with the boxrule style:

 generate_table( ... , separate_rows => 1 );

Which results in the following:

 ┌────────────┬─────────┬───────┐
 │ Pokemon    │ Type    │ Count │
 ╞════════════╪═════════╪═══════╡
 │ Abra       │ Psychic │     5 │
 ├────────────┼─────────┼───────┤
 │ Ekans      │ Poison  │   123 │
 ├────────────┼─────────┼───────┤
 │ Feraligatr │ Water   │  5678 │
 └────────────┴─────────┴───────┘

You can use this with the other styles, but I'm not sure you'd want to.

If you just want columnar output, use the "norule" style:

 generate_table( ... , style => 'norule' );

which results in:

  Pokemon      Type      Count
  
  Abra         Psychic       5
  Ekans        Poison      123
  Feraligatr   Water      5678

Note that everywhere you saw a line on the previous tables, there will be a space character in this version. So you may want to combine the "top_and_tail" option, to suppress the extra blank lines before and after the body of the table.