pretty printer with Python?

Question

I have a list of labels, and data as follows.

['id', 'Version', 'chip_name', 'xversion', 'device', 'opt_param', 'place_effort']
[1, 1.0, u'virtex2', u'xilinx11.5', u'xc5vlx50', u'Speed', u'High']

I need to print them into console. And for this, I'm iterating over the list, and print out each element with a tab ('\t').

But, unfortunately, the result is not so pretty.

number of data 1 and number of column 7
id      Version     chip_name       xversion        device      opt_param       place_effort        
1       1.0     virtex2     xilinx11.5      xc5vlx50        Speed       High        

The string length of label and data is quite variable, and it's not aligned well.

Is there any solution to this problem with Python?

ADDED

Hepled by Mike DeSimone's answer, I could make the pretty printer that I can use for my purposes. The valueResults are a list of duple.

    labels = queryResult.names
    valueResults = queryResult.result

    # get the maximum width
    allData = valueResults
    allData.insert(0,labels)
    transpose = zip(*valueResults) # remove the sequence as a parameter
    #print transpose
    for value in transpose:
        # value is integer/float/unicode/str, so make it length of str
        newValue = [len(str(i)) for i in value]
        columnWidth = max(newValue)
        columnWidths.append(columnWidth)
        dividers.append('-' * columnWidth)
        dblDividers.append('=' * columnWidth)
        label = value[0]
        paddedLabels.append(label.center(columnWidth))

    paddedString = ""

    for values in valueResults[1:]:
        paddedValue = []
        for i, value in enumerate(values):
            svalue = str(value)
            columnWidth = columnWidths[i]
            paddedValue.append(svalue.center(columnWidth))
        paddedString += '| ' + ' | '.join(paddedValue) + ' |' + '\n'

    string += '+-' + '-+-'.join(dividers) + '-+' + '\n'
    string += '| ' + ' | '.join(paddedLabels) + ' |' + '\n'
    string += '+=' + '=+='.join(dblDividers) + '=+' + '\n'
    string += paddedString
    string += '+-' + '-+-'.join(dividers) + '-+' + '\n'

And this is the result.

+----+---------+-----------+------------+----------+-----------+--------------+
| id | Version | chip_name |  xversion  |  device  | opt_param | place_effort |
+====+=========+===========+============+==========+===========+==============+
| 1  |   1.0   |  virtex2  | xilinx11.5 | xc5vlx50 |   Speed   |     High     |
| 2  |   1.0   |  virtex2  | xilinx11.5 | xc5vlx50 |   Speed   |     High     |
+----+---------+-----------+------------+----------+-----------+--------------+

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Something like this:

labels = ['id', 'Version', 'chip_name', 'xversion', 'device', 'opt_param', 
    'place_effort']
values = [1, 1.0, u'virtex2', u'xilinx11.5', u'xc5vlx50', u'Speed', u'High']

paddedLabels = []
paddedValues = []

for label, value in zip(labels, values):
    value = str(value)
    columnWidth = max(len(label), len(value))
    paddedLabels.append(label.center(columnWidth))
    paddedValues.append(value.center(columnWidth))

print ' '.join(paddedLabels)
print ' '.join(paddedValues)

Output:

id Version chip_name  xversion   device  opt_param place_effort
1    1.0    virtex2  xilinx11.5 xc5vlx50   Speed       High

If you want to get fancy, make it reStructuredText-ready:

labels = ['id', 'Version', 'chip_name', 'xversion', 'device', 'opt_param', 
    'place_effort']
values = [1, 1.0, u'virtex2', u'xilinx11.5', u'xc5vlx50', u'Speed', u'High']

paddedLabels = []
paddedValues = []
dividers = []
dblDividers = []

for label, value in zip(labels, values):
    value = str(value)
    columnWidth = max(len(label), len(value))
    paddedLabels.append(label.center(columnWidth))
    paddedValues.append(value.center(columnWidth))
    dividers.append('-' * columnWidth)
    dblDividers.append('=' * columnWidth)

print '+-' + '-+-'.join(dividers) + '-+'
print '| ' + ' | '.join(paddedLabels) + ' |'
print '+=' + '=+='.join(dblDividers) + '=+'
print '| ' + ' | '.join(paddedValues) + ' |'
print '+-' + '-+-'.join(dividers) + '-+'

Output:

+----+---------+-----------+------------+----------+-----------+--------------+
| id | Version | chip_name |  xversion  |  device  | opt_param | place_effort |
+====+=========+===========+============+==========+===========+==============+
| 1  |   1.0   |  virtex2  | xilinx11.5 | xc5vlx50 |   Speed   |     High     |
+----+---------+-----------+------------+----------+-----------+--------------+

Answer 2

Use ljust to stuff the contents before they are printed out.

import sys

def maxwidth(table, index):
    """Get the maximum width of the given column index"""
    return max([len(str(row[index])) for row in table])

def pprint_table(table):
    colpad = []

    for i in range(len(table[0])):
        colpad.append(maxwidth(table, i))

    for row in table:
        print str(row[0]).ljust(colpad[0] + 1),
        for i in range(1, len(row)):
            col = str(row[i]).rjust(colpad[i] + 2)
            print "", col,
        print ""

a = ['id', 'Version', 'chip_name', 'xversion', 'device', 'opt_param', 'place_effort']
b = [1, 1.0, u'virtex2', u'xilinx11.5', u'xc5vlx50', u'Speed', u'High']

# Put it in the table

c = [a, b]

pprint_table(c)

output:

id     Version    chip_name      xversion      device    opt_param    place_effort 
1          1.0      virtex2    xilinx11.5    xc5vlx50        Speed            High

Answer 3

Another solution is not to use tab at all, and uses spaces to adjust column width, also no need of manually padding, as '%Ns' string formatting comes handy e.g.

header = ['id', 'Version', 'chip_name', 'xversion', 'device', 'opt_param', 'place_effort']
rows = [[1, 1.0, u'virtex2', u'xilinx11.5', u'xc5vlx50', u'Speed', u'High']]

def print_row(row):
    column_width=12
    format_str = ("%-"+str(column_width)+"s")*len(row)
    print format_str%tuple(row)

print_row(header)
for row in rows:
    print_row(row)

Output:

id          Version     chip_name   xversion    device      opt_param   place_effort
1           1.0         virtex2     xilinx11.5  xc5vlx50    Speed       High

Answer 4

you could try this

>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 7678}
>>> for name, phone in table.items():
...     print '{0:10} ==> {1:10d}'.format(name, phone)
...
Jack       ==>       4098
Dcab       ==>       7678
Sjoerd     ==>       4127

from http://docs.python.org/tutorial/inputoutput.html

The integer after the : is the padding.

or better yet

>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 8637678}
>>> print ('Jack: {0[Jack]:d}; Sjoerd: {0[Sjoerd]:d}; '
...        'Dcab: {0[Dcab]:d}'.format(table))
Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678

Answer 5

You can use ready solution: : prettytable A simple Python library for easily displaying tabular data in a visually appealing ASCII table format

Other solutions, see my similar questions other answers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3319540/how-to-extend-pretty-print-module-to-tables

Answer 6

For a quick solution, If ln is the list containing all these lists,

for l in ln:
    print "\t".join([str(x).ljust(10) for x in l])

will print columns seperated by tab and left-justified. Increase the value inside ljust if it isn't pretty yet.