How can I create table using ASCII in a console?

Question

I would like to organize information like this:

The information is organized with cells, whereas with System.out.println the information would be very disorganized.

or this

+1. Not a bad question. If someone has a good library for this, please recommend. Otherwise, look at System.out.format — Thilo
– Thilo, Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 3:32
Your best bets are mainly to use System.out.printf(...) and the equivalent System.out.format(...). — Hovercraft Full Of Eels
– Hovercraft Full Of Eels, Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 3:34
Not an ASCII table, but similar question here .. stackoverflow.com/questions/5551186/… — Shatu
– Shatu, Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 20:55

Pshemo · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-07 19:40:26Z

100

You can use System.out.format() or System.out.printf() (printf internally simply invokes format so both methods give same results).

Below you will find example which will align text to left and fill unused places with spaces. Aligning String to left can be achieved with %-15s, which means:

% reserve (placeholder)
15 "places" for characters
s of String data-type
- and start printing them from left.

If you want to handle digits use d suffix like %-4d to reserve minimum 4 "spaces", number will be printed from left side of that "column".

BTW printf doesn't automatically add line separators after printed data, so if we want to move cursor to next line we need to do it ourselves. We can use \r or \n, or let Formatter generate OS dependent line separator (like for Windows \r\n) with %n (note: this "placeholder" doesn't require any data as arguments, Java will provide correct sequence based on OS).

You can find more info about supported syntax at documentation of Formatter class.

String leftAlignFormat = "| %-15s | %-4d |%n";

System.out.format("+-----------------+------+%n");
System.out.format("| Column name     | ID   |%n");
System.out.format("+-----------------+------+%n");
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    System.out.format(leftAlignFormat, "some data" + i, i * i);
}
System.out.format("+-----------------+------+%n");

output

+-----------------+------+
| Column name     | ID   |
+-----------------+------+
| some data0      | 0    |
| some data1      | 1    |
| some data2      | 4    |
| some data3      | 9    |
| some data4      | 16   |
+-----------------+------+

edited Dec 7, 2022 at 19:40

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 3:42

Pshemo

125k26 gold badges194 silver badges280 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Mike Brian Olivera Over a year ago

¡¡A perfect answer!! ¡Thank you so much! i could do that i wanted =)

Stephan Over a year ago

For fixed requirements, this solution is perfect. For more real life use cases, a library is more appropriate. See this answer: stackoverflow.com/a/35961774/363573.

Stephan · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-07 15:29:57Z

Try this alternative: asciitable.

It offers several implementations of a text table, originally using ASCII and UTF-8 characters for borders.

Here is a sample table:

    ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │ Table Heading                                                            │
    ├──────────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────────────┤
    │ first row (col1) │ with some        │ and more         │ even more       │
    │                  │ information      │ information      │                 │
    ├──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────┤
    │ second row       │ with some        │ and more         │ even more       │
    │ (col1)           │ information      │ information      │                 │
    │                  │ (col2)           │ (col3)           │                 │
    └──────────────────┴──────────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────────────┘

Find the latest version: http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/de.vandermeer/asciitable

See also: https://stackoverflow.com/a/39806611/363573

2xsaiko · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-15 16:17:21Z

My class I created specifically for doing this is completely dynamic: https://github.com/2xsaiko/crogamp/blob/master/src/com/github/mrebhan/crogamp/cli/TableList.java

You can use it like this:

TableList tl = new TableList(3, "ID", "String 1", "String 2").sortBy(0).withUnicode(true);
// from a list
yourListOrWhatever.forEach(element -> tl.addRow(element.getID(), element.getS1(), element.getS2()));
// or manually
tl.addRow("Hi", "I am", "Bob");

tl.print();

It will look like this with unicode chars (note: will look better in console since all chars are equally wide):

┌─────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
│ Command │ Description                                                             │ Syntax                     │
┢━━━━━━━━━╈━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╈━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┪
┃ bye     ┃ Quits the application.                                                  ┃                            ┃
┃ ga      ┃ Adds the specified game.                                                ┃ <id> <description> <path>  ┃
┃ gl      ┃ Lists all currently added games                                         ┃ [pattern]                  ┃
┃ gr      ┃ Rebuilds the files of the currently active game.                        ┃                            ┃
┃ gs      ┃ Selects the specified game.                                             ┃ <id>                       ┃
┃ help    ┃ Lists all available commands.                                           ┃ [pattern]                  ┃
┃ license ┃ Displays licensing info.                                                ┃                            ┃
┃ ma      ┃ Adds a mod to the currently active game.                                ┃ <id> <file>                ┃
┃ md      ┃ Deletes the specified mod and removes all associated files.             ┃ <id>                       ┃
┃ me      ┃ Toggles if the selected mod is active.                                  ┃ <id>                       ┃
┃ ml      ┃ Lists all mods for the currently active game.                           ┃ [pattern]                  ┃
┃ mm      ┃ Moves the specified mod to the specified position in the priority list. ┃ <id> <position>            ┃
┃ top kek ┃ Test command. Do not use, may cause death and/or destruction            ┃                            ┃
┃ ucode   ┃ Toggles advanced unicode. (Enhanced characters)                         ┃ [on|true|yes|off|false|no] ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

And with unicode chars off (omit the .withUnicode(true)):

Command | Description                                                             | Syntax                    
--------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------
bye     | Quits the application.                                                  |                           
ga      | Adds the specified game.                                                | <id> <description> <path> 
gl      | Lists all currently added games                                         | [pattern]                 
gr      | Rebuilds the files of the currently active game.                        |                           
gs      | Selects the specified game.                                             | <id>                      
help    | Lists all available commands.                                           | [pattern]                 
license | Displays licensing info.                                                |                           
ma      | Adds a mod to the currently active game.                                | <id> <file>               
md      | Deletes the specified mod and removes all associated files.             | <id>                      
me      | Toggles if the selected mod is active.                                  | <id>                      
ml      | Lists all mods for the currently active game.                           | [pattern]                 
mm      | Moves the specified mod to the specified position in the priority list. | <id> <position>           
top kek | Test command. Do not use, may cause death and/or destruction            |                           
ucode   | Toggles advanced unicode. (Enhanced characters)                         | [on|true|yes|off|false|no]

Also have a look here for more unicodes: fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/box_drawing/images.htm

jedyobidan · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 03:36:05Z

5

use System.out.printf()

For example,

String s = //Any string
System.out.printf(%10s, s);

will print out the contents of String s, taking up exactly 10 characters. So if you want a table, just make sure each cell in the table is printed out to the same length. Also notice that printf() doesn't print a new line, so you'll have to print it yourself.

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 3:36

jedyobidan

9361 gold badge8 silver badges14 bronze badges

Comments

kfoxon · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 04:12:42Z

4

You could use java-ascii-table. See also the author's site.

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 4:12

kfoxon

672 gold badges2 silver badges12 bronze badges

1 Comment

Stephan Over a year ago

java-ascii-table seems abandonned. See this answer for an alternative: stackoverflow.com/a/35961774/363573

David Cely · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-20 16:08:03Z

I do it this way

Example: Print a table with the values of x² - x + 41 for 1 < x < 42

public class PrimeEquation
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        String header = "";
        header += formatDiv("a-----b-------------b----------c\n");
        header += formatRow("|  x  | x² - x + 41 | Is Prime |\n");
        header += formatDiv("d-----e-------------e----------f\n");
        System.out.print(header);

        for (int x = 2; x <= 41; x++)
        {
            int y = primeEquation(x);
            String str1 = String.format("| %3d | %11d | %8b |", x, y, MyPrimes.isPrime(y));
            System.out.println(formatRow(str1));
        }

        System.out.println(formatDiv("g-----h-------------h----------i"));
    }

    public static int primeEquation(int x)
    {
        return (x*x) - x + 41;
    }

    public static String formatRow(String str)
    {
        return str.replace('|', '\u2502');
    }

    public static String formatDiv(String str)
    {
        return str.replace('a', '\u250c')
                .replace('b', '\u252c')
                .replace('c', '\u2510')
                .replace('d', '\u251c')
                .replace('e', '\u253c')
                .replace('f', '\u2524')
                .replace('g', '\u2514')
                .replace('h', '\u2534')
                .replace('i', '\u2518')
                .replace('-', '\u2500');
    }
}

Output:

Maciej Cygan · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 03:41:02Z

1

You can use string.format() with correct method Code could look something like this i guess

StringBuilder sb=new StringBuilder();

for(int i = 1; i <= numberOfColumns; i++)
 {
       sb.append(String.format(%-10s,rsMetaData.getColumnLabel(i);
 }

As of library i dont think there is any that would do the job, however i might be mistaken! will actually do research on it

Also have a look at this http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/Formatter.html#syntax

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 3:41

Maciej Cygan

5,5115 gold badges43 silver badges75 bronze badges

Comments

Ashwin Jayaprakash · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-16 05:51:48Z

1

This also works pretty well http://sourceforge.net/projects/texttablefmt/. Apache licensed too.

answered Sep 16, 2014 at 5:51

Ashwin Jayaprakash

2,1861 gold badge26 silver badges30 bronze badges

1 Comment

Stephan Over a year ago

texttablefmt doesn't seem to be available on Maven. Here is another library available on Maven: stackoverflow.com/a/35961774/363573

user2600734 · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-19 11:55:56Z

1

You can use Spring Shell utility class org.springframework.shell.table.TableModel:

      TableModel model = new BeanListTableModel<>(portConfigurations, headers);
    TableBuilder tableBuilder = new TableBuilder(model);
    tableBuilder.addFullBorder(BorderStyle.oldschool);
    //TableUtils.applyStyle(tableBuilder);
    return tableBuilder.build().render(100);

answered Mar 19, 2019 at 11:55

user2600734

112 bronze badges

Comments

jsheeran · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-31 10:27:35Z

Just in case somebody needs this type of table:

+----+----+----+----+----+
|  1 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  5 |
+----+----+----+----+----+
|  6 |  7 |  8 |  9 | 10 |
+----+----+----+----+----+
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
+----+----+----+----+----+
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
+----+----+----+----+----+
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
+----+----+----+----+----+

Here is my solution:

public class TableShape {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int width_and_height=5;
        int count=1; 

        for(int i=0;i<width_and_height ; i++) {
            System.out.println("+----+----+----+----+----+");

            for(int j=0;j<width_and_height;j++) {
                System.out.format("| %2d ", count++);

                if(j==width_and_height-1) { // closing | for last column
                    System.out.print("|");
                }
            }
            System.out.println();
            if(i==width_and_height-1) { // closing line for last row
                System.out.print("+----+----+----+----+----+");
            }
        }

    }
}

GtdDev · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-27 00:23:02Z

Using fragments of the idea from @David Celi, I create my own solution.

This is my solution.

I hope it help.

Thanks for @David Celi

private static class ConsolePanel {

public static void main(String[] args) {

  fullPanel(21, 5, 3, 3,
            "myTitcccle",
            "myBoxxxdy", "myBvvy2", "myBvvy2"
  );
}


public static void simplePanel(
     int scale,
     int margin,
     int upSpace,
     int downSpace,
     String... titleAndOthers) {

  fullPanel(
       21,
       5,
       1,
       1,
       titleAndOthers
  );
}

public static void simplePanelWithSize(
     int scale,
     int margin,
     int upSpace,
     int downSpace,
     String... titleAndOthers) {

  fullPanel(
       scale,
       5,
       1,
       1,
       titleAndOthers
  );
}

public static void fullPanel(
     int scale,
     int margin,
     int upSpace,
     int downSpace,
     String... titleAndOthers) {

  var marginLimitedBySize = Math.min(margin, scale);

  // scale + margin discrepacies eliminated
  if (marginLimitedBySize % 2 != 0) -- marginLimitedBySize;
  if (scale % 2 != 0) ++ scale;

  int fullSize = (scale * 2) - marginLimitedBySize;
  if (fullSize % 2 == 0) ++ fullSize;
  else -- fullSize;

  var internalTextSpace = String.valueOf(fullSize);

  var marginAsString = " ".repeat(marginLimitedBySize);
  var upperSpace = "\n".repeat(upSpace);
  var lowerSpace = "\n".repeat(downSpace);
  var baseline =
       "_".repeat(scale)
          .replace('_', myFont.BASE_LINE.code);

  var divider =
       "_".repeat(scale)
          .replace('_', myFont.BASE_LINE_BOLD.code);

  var upperLineString =
       myFont.UPPER_LEFT_CORNER.code + baseline +
       myFont.MIDDLE_CENTER.code + baseline +
       myFont.UPPER_RIGHT_CORNER.code + "\n";

  var middleLineString =
       myFont.MIDDLE_LEFT.code + divider +
       myFont.MIDDLE_CENTER.code + divider +
       myFont.MIDDLE_RIGHT.code + "\n";

  var bottonLineString =
       myFont.LOWER_LEFT_CORNER.code + baseline +
       myFont.MIDDLE_CENTER.code + baseline +
       myFont.LOWER_RIGHT_CORNER.code + "\n";

  var textBuilder = new StringBuilder();
  textBuilder
       .append(upperSpace)
       .append(upperLineString)

       .append(myFont.MIDDLE_FACE.code )
       .append("%s%%-%ss".formatted(marginAsString, internalTextSpace))
       .append(myFont.MIDDLE_FACE.code )
       .append("\n" )
       .append(middleLineString)
  ;

  // "-1" Because the first element in the Array was used as title
  for (int i = titleAndOthers.length - 1; i > 0; i--)
    textBuilder.append(
         simpleLineStyle(
              "|%s%%-%ss|\n".formatted(marginAsString, internalTextSpace)));

  textBuilder
       .append(bottonLineString)
       .append(lowerSpace);
  System.out.printf(textBuilder.toString(), (Object[]) titleAndOthers);
}

 private enum myFont {

  MIDDLE_CENTER('\u2501'),
  BASE_LINE('\u2500'),
  BASE_LINE_BOLD('\u2501'),
  UPPER_LEFT_CORNER('\u250F'),
  UPPER_RIGHT_CORNER('\u2513'),
  MIDDLE_LEFT('\u2523'),
  MIDDLE_RIGHT('\u252B'),
  MIDDLE_FACE('\u2502'),
  LOWER_LEFT_CORNER('\u2517'),
  LOWER_RIGHT_CORNER('\u251B');

  private final char code;

  myFont(char code) {

    this.code = code;
  }
}

}

hd1 · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 03:42:06Z

0

TUIAWT lets you use AWT components in a console window. It doesn't look like it supports List or Table, though, but it may give you a starting point.

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 3:42

hd1

34.9k5 gold badges83 silver badges95 bronze badges

1 Comment

Stephan Over a year ago

As of this writing, the last update to TUIAWT seems to be in March 2015.

Ravi K · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-06 03:16:22Z

I attempted a solution for this with these features

Dynamic width of columns
If width beyond max, then wrap it to next line.

Here is the simple pure java solution which you can use as per your need.

Output will look something like this.

+----+------------+--------------------------------+-----+--------------------------------+
| id | First Name | Last Name                      | Age | Profile                        |
+----+------------+--------------------------------+-----+--------------------------------+
| 1  | John       | Johnson                        | 45  | My name is John Johnson. My id |
|    |            |                                |     |  is 1. My age is 45.           |
|    |            |                                |     |                                |
| 2  | Tom        |                                | 35  | My name is Tom. My id is 2. My |
|    |            |                                |     |  age is 35.                    |
|    |            |                                |     |                                |
| 3  | Rose       | Johnson Johnson Johnson Johnso | 22  | My name is Rose Johnson. My id |
|    |            | n Johnson Johnson Johnson John |     |  is 3. My age is 22.           |
|    |            | son Johnson Johnson            |     |                                |
|    |            |                                |     |                                |
| 4  | Jimmy      | Kimmel                         |     | My name is Jimmy Kimmel. My id |
|    |            |                                |     |  is 4. My age is not specified |
|    |            |                                |     | . I am the host of the late ni |
|    |            |                                |     | ght show. I am not fan of Matt |
|    |            |                                |     |  Damon.                        |
|    |            |                                |     |                                |
+----+------------+--------------------------------+-----+--------------------------------+

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How can I create table using ASCII in a console?

13 Answers 13

2 Comments

1 Comment

1 Comment

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

13 Answers 13

2 Comments

1 Comment

1 Comment

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related