table

table

Static table rendering for CLI output.

Overview

The table package provides simple, non-interactive table rendering for command-line applications. It's designed for tools that need to display tabular data and exit (like kubectl get, ls -l, docker ps, etc.).

This is separate from the interactive Bubble Tea components in the parent tui package.

Installation

go get github.com/SCKelemen/tui/table

Quick Start

package main

import (
    "github.com/SCKelemen/tui/table"
)

func main() {
    t := table.New("Name", "Status", "Age")
    t.AddRow("service-a", "Running", "2d")
    t.AddRow("service-b", "Stopped", "5h")
    t.AddRow("service-c", "Starting", "30s")
    t.Print()
}

Output:

┌───────────┬──────────┬──────┐
│ Name      │ Status   │ Age  │
├───────────┼──────────┼──────┤
│ service-a │ Running  │ 2d   │
├───────────┼──────────┼──────┤
│ service-b │ Stopped  │ 5h   │
├───────────┼──────────┼──────┤
│ service-c │ Starting │ 30s  │
└───────────┴──────────┴──────┘

Features

• Unicode box drawing - Beautiful rounded borders by default
• Multiple border styles - Rounded, double-line, or ASCII for compatibility
• Automatic column sizing - Columns auto-expand to fit content
• Bold headers - Optional bold formatting for headers
• Simple or detailed - Choose between full borders or compact mode

Border Styles

Rounded (default)

t := table.New("A", "B")
t.AddRow("1", "2")
t.Print()

┌───┬───┐
│ A │ B │
├───┼───┤
│ 1 │ 2 │
└───┴───┘

Double-line

t := table.New("A", "B")
t.SetBorderStyle(table.BorderStyleDouble)
t.AddRow("1", "2")
t.Print()

╔═══╦═══╗
║ A ║ B ║
╠═══╬═══╣
║ 1 ║ 2 ║
╚═══╩═══╝

ASCII (maximum compatibility)

t := table.New("A", "B")
t.SetBorderStyle(table.BorderStyleASCII)
t.AddRow("1", "2")
t.Print()

+---+---+
| A | B |
+---+---+
| 1 | 2 |
+---+---+

Simple Mode

For more compact output without row separators:

t := table.New("Name", "Status")
t.AddRow("service-a", "Running")
t.AddRow("service-b", "Stopped")
t.PrintSimple()

┌───────────┬─────────┐
│ Name      │ Status  │
├───────────┼─────────┤
│ service-a │ Running │
│ service-b │ Stopped │
└───────────┴─────────┘

API Reference

Creating Tables

// Create a table with headers
t := table.New("Column1", "Column2", "Column3")

// Set border style
t.SetBorderStyle(table.BorderStyleRounded)  // default
t.SetBorderStyle(table.BorderStyleDouble)
t.SetBorderStyle(table.BorderStyleASCII)

// Control header formatting
t.SetHeaderBold(true)  // default
t.SetHeaderBold(false)

Adding Data

// Add a single row
t.AddRow("value1", "value2", "value3")

// Add multiple rows at once
rows := [][]string{
    {"a", "b", "c"},
    {"d", "e", "f"},
}
t.AddRows(rows)

// Clear all rows (keeps headers)
t.Clear()

Rendering

// Get rendered string
output := t.Render()        // with row separators
output := t.RenderSimple()  // without row separators

// Print to stdout
t.Print()        // with row separators
t.PrintSimple()  // without row separators

// Or use as a Stringer
fmt.Println(t)  // calls Render()

Use Cases

Perfect for:

• kubectl-style output - myapp get resources
• ls-style listings - myapp list --format table
• Status displays - myapp status --all
• Comparison tables - myapp compare service-a service-b
• Any CLI tool that needs formatted table output

Comparison with Interactive Components

Design Philosophy

The table package follows these principles:

1. Zero dependencies - Only uses Go stdlib
2. Print and exit - For non-interactive CLI tools
3. Beautiful by default - Unicode borders, proper spacing
4. Fallback support - ASCII mode for restricted terminals
5. Simple API - Minimal methods, intuitive usage

Performance

The table renderer is optimized for CLI output:

• Memory efficient - Single string builder allocation
• Fast rendering - Benchmarked at ~50µs for 100 rows
• Minimal allocations - Reuses buffers where possible

Future Enhancements

Potential additions:

• Column alignment (left, right, center)
• Color support for cells
• Column width limits with truncation
• Footer rows
• Multi-line cell support
• Custom cell padding
• Row highlighting

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please ensure:

• All tests pass: go test ./table
• Code is formatted: go fmt ./table
• Examples work: go run ./table/example

License

MIT