[ANN] PrettyTables.jl v0.9.0 - Breaking release, please read

[Ronis_BR]

Hi!

I have just tagged a new release of PrettyTables.jl - it should be registered soon. This modifies a lot of things and, unfortunately, breaks a lot of things… This was necessary because the package became much bigger than I thought initially. Thus, I had to improve the consistency by throwing away bad choices

The entire changelog is:

• The table format of the text back-end now has the variable vlines which defines the vertical lines that should be drawn by default. In this case, the variables left_border and right_border were removed because they were not necessary anymore.
• The compatibility with Tables.jl API was improved. Now, tables without a schema can be printed. Furthermore, if a table has a schema but the user pass a header, then the user’s header will be used instead. Thus, this can be breaking. (Issue [#45][gh-issue-45])
• The behavior of the keyword hlines was modified in text back-end. Now, it can be used to draw any horizontal line, including the bottom, header, and top lines. A variable also named hlines was added to the structure TextFormat to defined which horizontal lines should be drawn by default. Thus, the variables top_line, header_line, and bottom_line of the same structure were removed since they were not necessary anymore. Furthermore, the old behavior of hlines and hlines_format can be replicated in this version using body_hlines and body_hlines_format, respectively.
• The vertical lines behavior in LaTeX back-end was modified to match the behavior selected for the text back-end. Thus, the keyword row_number_vline was removed, since it was not necessary anymore.
• The API of formatters was drastically change to improve the consistency of the package. Now, as we have in highlighters, the formatters are composed of a function or a tuple of functions with the signature f(value,i,j), where value is the cell value that must be formatted, i is the row number, and j is the column number. These function must return the formatted value for the cell (i,j). Since it is now possible to define multiple formatters, the keyword name was changed from formatter to formatters. The old API still works, but it marked as deprecated.
• The vertical lines in text back-end can now be controlled by the keyword vlines. (Issue [#46][gh-issue-46])
• The option row_names can be used to append a column to the left of the table with the names of the columns.
• The highlighters format of text back-end was improved. The user can now create highlighters that will dynamically apply crayons depending on the data value and the cell coordinate, as it was possible with the LaTeX and HTML back-ends.
• The API of cell_alignment was changed to improve the consistency of the package. Now, as we have in highlighters, the cell_alignment must be a function or a tuple of functions with the signature f(data,i,j), where data is the matrix that is being printed, i is the row number, and j is the column number. These function must return the alignment symbol for the cell (i,j). For convenience, the old API using dictionaries is still available for the simple cases.
• End of support of Julia 1.3. The supported versions are 1.0 and 1.4.

Thus, with this new version, it is very easy to format table lines in text backend. I saw a lot of people creating custom formats just to remove a line, which seems bad. Thus, let’s say you want to print something without any horizontal line:

julia> data = ["Set 1" 1 2 3 4 5
               "Set 2" 3 4 5 2 5
               "Set 3" 5 6 8 1 2];

julia> pretty_table(data, ["Set" "1st" "2nd" "3rd" "4th" "5th"], hlines = :none)
│   Set │ 1st │ 2nd │ 3rd │ 4th │ 5th │
│ Set 1 │   1 │   2 │   3 │   4 │   5 │
│ Set 2 │   3 │   4 │   5 │   2 │   5 │
│ Set 3 │   5 │   6 │   8 │   1 │   2 │

Or, maybe, with just the header line:

julia> pretty_table(data, ["Set" "1st" "2nd" "3rd" "4th" "5th"], hlines = [:header])
│   Set │ 1st │ 2nd │ 3rd │ 4th │ 5th │
├───────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤
│ Set 1 │   1 │   2 │   3 │   4 │   5 │
│ Set 2 │   3 │   4 │   5 │   2 │   5 │
│ Set 3 │   5 │   6 │   8 │   1 │   2 │

The same can be done for the vertical lines:

julia> pretty_table(data, ["Set" "1st" "2nd" "3rd" "4th" "5th"], hlines = [:header], vlines = :none)
   Set   1st   2nd   3rd   4th   5th
──────────────────────────────────────
 Set 1     1     2     3     4     5
 Set 2     3     4     5     2     5
 Set 3     5     6     8     1     2

julia> pretty_table(data, ["Set" "1st" "2nd" "3rd" "4th" "5th"], hlines = [:header], vlines = [:begin,1,:end])
│   Set │ 1st   2nd   3rd   4th   5th │
├───────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ Set 1 │   1     2     3     4     5 │
│ Set 2 │   3     4     5     2     5 │
│ Set 3 │   5     6     8     1     2 │

The highlighters in text back-end can now be dynamically selected based on the data set. Hence, we can now select the text color based on the cell value. Using the package ColorScheme.jl, it is now possible to do this:

julia> using PrettyTables

julia> using ColorSchemes

julia> data = [ sind(x)*cosd(y) for x in 0:10:180, y in 0:10:180 ]

julia> hl = Highlighter((data,i,j)->true,
                        (h,data,i,j)->begin
                             color = get(colorschemes[:coolwarm], data[i,j], (-1,1))
                             return Crayon(foreground = (round(Int,color.r*255),
                                                         round(Int,color.g*255),
                                                         round(Int,color.b*255)))
                         end)

julia> pretty_table(data, ["x = $(x)°" for x = 0:10:180],
                    row_names = ["y = $(y)°" for y = 0:10:180],
                    highlighters = hl,
                    formatters = ft_printf("%.2f"))

(For this case, your terminal must support 24bit colors!)

[shorty66]

Your first link to the package leads nowhere. Did you mean to link this URL https://github.com/ronisbr/PrettyTables.jl?

[Ronis_BR]

Yes! Thanks, I will edit

[Zach_Christensen]

Thanks @Ronis_BR for this truly great package. For those who are unaware, some of these changes were things that I was specifically requesting. My requests received generous attention. I’m excited to see how this package continues to integrate into various parts of the Julia ecosystem.

[Ronis_BR]

Thanks for the kind words I am glad it is being useful!