Go TextCol

A Go package that takes a flat array of strings and prints it in a columnar format.

We all love the way the ls command formats its output. It prints columns that are dynamically sized based on the size of the contents and the terminal. This package lets you pass a simple array of strings, and will figure out the right sizes to print it in a columnar layout, just like ls -C. No need to specify any lengths or the number of items per row or mess with seperators. It will even work if there are ANSI escape codes in the text.

Install

$ go get github.com/acarl005/textcol

Usage

func PrintColumns(stringArray *[]string, margin int)

// thing.go

import "github.com/acarl005/textcol"

func main() {
	items := []string{
		"📂 folder thing",
		"won't get tripped up by emojis",
		"or even \x1b[38;5;140mcolor codes\x1b[0m.",
		"here",
		"are",
		"some",
		"shorter",
		"lines",
		"running out of stuff",
		"foo bar",
	}
	// pass pointer to array of strings and a margin value. this will ensure at least 4 spaces appear to the right of each cell
	textcol.PrintColumns(&items, 4)
}

And this is what the output will be: