That is a nice package @Ronis_BR! Thanks!
Would it make sense to have it as a dependency in DataFrames.jl and use it there? The current print methods in DataFrames.jl aren’t that flexible.
cc: @bkamins
2 Likes
That crossed my mind, too. But, I think it’s more ambitious than PrettyTables is at the moment. The right way to go about it would be to define a generic interface for printing table-like things with PrettyTables. In fact it would probably be fairly easy to make minor changes to DataFrames to allow it to work with a PrettyDataFrames glue package, so people can try it out and see if it is strongly preferred.
I think the right approach is not to have PrettyTables.jl as a dependency in DataFrames.jl, but change DataFrames.jl in such a way that PrettyTables.jl can overwrite the default printing.
If I understand you correctly this is exactly what you propose - right @jlapeyre?
If yes - what would be the changes needed in DataFrames.jl to follow this path?
Or maybe in general it should be Tables.jl not DataFrames.jl to be even more flexible.
7 Likes
Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking about. I guess a glue package between PrettyTables and Tables would be the most useful. I don’t know enough to details to say more. It makes sense to offload the display code for tables, like eg. using CSV for saving/reading.
This might be drifting from what PrettyTables was meant to be.
But, if it were to work, I guess such an interface would be very widely appreciated.
1 Like
Maybe the best approach is provide a way to “register” in Tables.jl a printing system. Then the users can select whatever they want by loading the specific package that will register itself using this API. PrettyTables.jl was thought to be a printing system for Text tables, we have others for LaTeX, etc.
One can print quite nice tables with just 30-odd lines of Julia code, as in
OK guys, I bring updates!
Now we have a documentation (even an icon! 
), which can be accessed here.
I also did some modifications, as the introduction of what I called sub-headers. Basically, you can now have multiple lines in the header to add information such as the unit of the data:
Using this, PrettyTables.jl can now print DataFrames.jl showing the types (as the default print system of DataFrames.jl does).
Now my next steps should be:
- Wait for the package be approved on METADATA.jl
- Figure out what to do when the data is too wide to fit the screen (ideas?)
10 Likes
How do I add your package PrettyTables.jl
julia>
$ julia
_
_ _ _(_)_ | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
(_) | (_) (_) |
_ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?" for help, "]?" for Pkg help.
| | | | | | |/ _` | |
| | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 1.0.3 (2018-12-18)
_/ |\__'_|_|_|\__'_| | Official https://julialang.org/ release
|__/ |
julia>]
(v1.0) pkg> add PrettyTables
Updating registry at `~/.julia/registries/General`
Updating git-repo `https://github.com/JuliaRegistries/General.git`
ERROR: The following package names could not be resolved:
* PrettyTables (not found in project, manifest or registry)
Please specify by known `name=uuid`.
Please help.
try
] add https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl
1 Like
I think it worked. I will find out soon
julia>
$ julia
_
_ _ _(_)_ | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
(_) | (_) (_) |
_ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?" for help, "]?" for Pkg help.
| | | | | | |/ _` | |
| | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 1.0.3 (2018-12-18)
_/ |\__'_|_|_|\__'_| | Official https://julialang.org/ release
|__/ |
julia>]
(v1.0) pkg> add https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl
Updating registry at `~/.julia/registries/General`
Updating git-repo `https://github.com/JuliaRegistries/General.git`
Cloning git-repo `https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl`
Updating git-repo `https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl`
Resolving package versions...
Installed DataStructures ─── v0.15.0
Installed NearestNeighbors ─ v0.4.3
Updating `~/.julia/environments/v1.0/Project.toml`
[bf2635c2] + PrettyTables v0.1.0 #master (https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl)
Updating `~/.julia/environments/v1.0/Manifest.toml`
[864edb3b] ↑ DataStructures v0.14.0 ⇒ v0.15.0
[b8a86587] ↑ NearestNeighbors v0.4.2 ⇒ v0.4.3
[bf2635c2] + PrettyTables v0.1.0 #master (https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl)
julia> data = ["Col. 1" "Col. 2" "Col. 3" "Col. 4";
1 false 1.0 0x01 ;
2 true 2.0 0x02 ;
3 false 3.0 0x03 ;
4 true 4.0 0x04 ;
5 false 5.0 0x05 ;
6 true 6.0 0x06 ;]
7×4 Array{Any,2}:
"Col. 1" "Col. 2" "Col. 3" "Col. 4"
1 false 1.0 0x01
2 true 2.0 0x02
3 false 3.0 0x03
4 true 4.0 0x04
5 false 5.0 0x05
6 true 6.0 0x06
julia> pretty_table(data)
ERROR: UndefVarError: pretty_table not defined
Stacktrace:
[1] top-level scope at none:0
julia> using PrettyTables
[ Info: Precompiling PrettyTables [bf2635c2-15c2-11e9-0b27-5fb50ccc2906]
julia> pretty_table(data)
┌────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┐
│ Col. 1 │ Col. 2 │ Col. 3 │ Col. 4 │
├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤
│ Col. 1 │ Col. 2 │ Col. 3 │ Col. 4 │
│ 1 │ false │ 1.0 │ 1 │
│ 2 │ true │ 2.0 │ 2 │
│ 3 │ false │ 3.0 │ 3 │
│ 4 │ true │ 4.0 │ 4 │
│ 5 │ false │ 5.0 │ 5 │
│ 6 │ true │ 6.0 │ 6 │
└────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┘
It worked. Thank you.
This is excellent. I really like the generality of an API. This is great for visualization of results.
1 Like
This will work as soon as it gets accepted in METADATA!
Looks nice – I’ll try it soon. Question: someone suggested that it would be great if it is possible to “LaTeXify” the table, i.e., so that we can paste the table into a LaTeX document. Is that something that might be possible?
If you read the thread you will find 2 options for that.
1 Like
Package was accepted and updated!
Now you can install it by typing ]add PrettyTables.
I would love some feedback! I am expecting lots of bugs…
10 Likes
Very useful !
Does it make sense to add limiter (like in print_matrix) ?
Thanks! I do not know. Maybe it will be nice to add a limit when the screen is not big enough to fit the data. But then I think this is a package to print data and not create data, then is it useful to omit data?
It is a good discussion… what do you think?
I found the output so nice that I was considering to use it as the default output for my own ND-Array struct…
In this case the limit makes sense (I use print_matrix right now). I understand that this use case is a bit out of the primary scope of your package 
3 Likes
Ah, Good! I see. Well, then yes 
I will see if I can do such limit.
1 Like
Thanks – I assume you refer to the suggestions (1) LatexPrint, (2) Latexify, and (3) TexTables. What I meant by my questions was more whether it is possible to pipe the result of PrettyTables into, say, Latexify – which might be interesting if PrettyTables has more (or rather: simpler) control of the layout/typesetting. Anyway, I’ll check around a little.
2 Likes