Provided by: libdata-showtable-perl_4.6-4_all 
NAME
showtable - Show data in nicely formatted columns
USAGE
showtable [-options] [file]
DESCRIPTION
Showtable reads an input data stream and displays it in a nicely formatted listing, with exact formatting
depending upon the options. The input stream, file or "STDIN" by default should consist of data
separated by tabs or the defined separator character (see -d).
The actual output formatting is peformed by the ShowTable module.
OPTIONS
There are two general sets of options: those which help determine the format of the input, and those
which determine the format of the output.
Options affecting input
-break=str
Set the inter-column break string to "str". The default is a tab (""\t""). If -strip is also
given, blanks surrounding the break string will also be ignored.
-dstr This is the same as "-break="str.
-nod(ashes)
Do not ignore lines of separators, such as dashes, equal signs, or underlines. If -nodashes is
given, and these lines do occur in the stream, they will be treated as normal data.
-ti(tles)[=NN]
Treat the first NN rows of data as column titles; multiple words in the column titles may wrap
vertically. If NN is omitted, it defaults to 1. No -titles option is the same as -titles=0.
-in(put)=type
Set the input type as type, which can be one of: box, list, table, or simple. A simple-type
table is the same as a table-type, but no wrapping characters are recognized.
-s(trip) Strip blanks from around the column values.
-nos(trip)
Do not strip blanks from the input. Useful if there is formatted or aligned data within a
boxed table.
Options affecting output
-t(able) Use a table format for output, with wrapping of column values longer than the given or
determined column widths. See Data::ShowTable for more details.
-si(mple) Use a simple table format, without any wrapping of column values. See Data::ShowTable for more
details.
-l(ist) Use a list style format. See Data::ShowTable for more details.
-b(ox) Use a "boxed" style table. See Data::ShowTable for more details.
-ht(ml) Use HTML-formating. See Data::ShowTable for more details.
-ti(tles)=name1,name2,...,nameN
Define the column names explicitly. This is useful for naming columns of data from "STDIN",
when showtable is being used as a filter. The first column name, name1, cannot begin with a
digit. This option allows any column titles obtained from the input to be overridden.
-noh(eaders)
Do not output any headers on the tables; -titles=0 implies this option.
-fn1[,n2, ..., nN]
Select fields numbered n1, n2, etc., to display. Each nN is a field index, or a range of
indexes in the form: "N"-"M" The default is to show all the fields in each row. Fields are
numbered from 1. An example: to show the first, and three through five fields of the
"/etc/passwd" file:
showtable -d: -f1,2-5 /etc/passwd
-fields=fname1[,fname2, ..., fnameN]
Select the named fields to display. The field names must be available, either through the data
stream, or by using the -titles option. The field names given must match the existing field
names exactly.
Using the file "/etc/passwd" for another example: to show the same first two fields, by name:
showtable -d: -titles=Login,UID -fields=Login,UID /etc/passwd
-w(idth)=num
Set the maximum table width. This value is applied to the variable
Data::Showtable::Max_Table_Width. When the total width of all columns to be displayed exceeds
this value, all column widths are scaled uniformly.
If -width is not given, then for all output but -html, the default value is either ""COLUMNS"",
if defined, or 80, if not. Whith -html mode, there is no default value for -width; in other
words, there is no limit to the width.
-cw(idths)=w1[,w2,...,wN]
Set individual column widths to the specified values. Empty column widths imply no maximum
width. If the -width option is also given, then the -cwidth column widths can also be given as
fractions or percentages.
Example: To set the maximum width of the third column to 20 characters:
-cw=,,20
HTML-only options (the usage of which implies -html)
-noe(scape)
Do not perform HTML escape sequences on the data; this allows embedded HTML text in the data to
be displayed properly with the -html option.
-attributes='attr1 attr2 ...'
Declare the table attributes, which are inserted into the "TABLE" token. For example, the
option:
-attributes='BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=2 CELLPADDING=4'
would cause the following HTML:
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=2 CELLPADDING=4>
The default table attributes are:
<TABLE BORDER=1 CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=1>
-t(itle)_f(ormats)=fmt1;fmt2;...;fmtN
Set the HTML formats for the column titles. The -title_formats (or just -tf) can be given
multiple times, for each column, or formats for multiple columns can be given on the same
option separated by semi-colons "";"".
Each fmtN can itself be multiple HTML items, separated by commas. Each HTML element can be
given either as an HTML token (eg: ""\<BOLD\">"), or as a plain name (eg: ""BOLD"").
For example, here is a title format specification for three columns, where the first column
title should be bold italic, the second italic, and the third italic in a smaller font:
-tf='BOLD,I;I;<FONT SIZE=-2>,I'
-d(ata)_f(formats)=fmt1;fmt2;...;fmtN
The same as -title_formats but applies to the column data.
-url(s)=col1=url1,col2=url2,...
Define a mapping from column names, or indexes, to URLs to be inserted as <A HREF's> around the
values for the named columns. Each colN is a column name or index, and each urlN is a string
representing the URL to be inserted for the given column.
The URL text may contain these substitution strings:
%K - will be substituted with the current column name (or key).
%V - will be substituted with the current column value.
Multiple -url options may be given, if desired, rather than creating one long argument for a
single -url. For example:
showtable -d: -f1,6 -titles=Login,Homedir \
-url='Login=mailto:%V' \
-url='HomeDir=file:%V' \
/etc/passwd
Other options
-help Display some help to the user and quit.
Boxed Input
If the input type is box, then vertical and horizontal box characters are removed from the input stream,
and blanks surrounding the vertical box characters are removed. The vertical box characters (column
separaters) are ""|"" or "":"". The The horizontal box characters are ""+"" and ""-"".
Morever, data wrapped within a column is recognized and parsed as one column value, by recognizing the
presence of a wrapping prefix or wrapping suffix character. Currently, the wrapping prefix character is
"<", and the wrapping suffix character is ">".
An example of data wrapped within a column is given here. The table below has just two logical rows of
data; with both rows having data wrapped into multiple physical rows.
+---------+---------+---------+
| Col 1 | Col 2 | Col 3 |
+---------+---------+---------+
| This is>| Another>| Row 1,3>|
|< a cont>|< value. |<is also>|
|<inued >| |<long. |
|<value. | | |
|This is >| Item2-2 | Item2-3 |
+---------+---------+---------+
List Format
When using the -list or -input=list options, either, or both, the input and output may be in a "list"
format, which is implemented using the following syntax:
r1c1_name: r1c1_value
r1c2_name: r1c2_value
...
r1cN_name: r1cN_value
r2c1_name: r2c1_value
r2c2_name: r2c2_value
: r2c2_value_continued
...
r2cN_name: r2cN_value
rMc1_name: rMc1_value
rMc2_name: rMc2_value
...
rMcN_name: rMcN_value
Each row of data consists of one or more columns, and ends with a blank line.
Each column consists of a column name, followed by a colon ":", followed by an optional, single space or
tab, followed by the column value, on the same line.
Continuation lines of the previous column value consist of one or more space or tab characters, a colon
":", one optional, single space or tab, followed by the continuation value. In the example above, The
second column value of the second row was continued.
HTML Input with HTML Output
When using -html on data already containing HTML-formatted text, the -noescape option should be used. By
default, all input text is assumed not to be HTML-formatted, and is escaped allowing embedded "<", ">"
characters, if any, to be displayed correctly.
DEPENDENCIES
Data::ShowTable module
Performs the actual output formatting.
AUTHOR
Alan K. Stebbens aks@stebbens.org
BUGS
• Currently, the box formatting characters are not configurable: '+' for the corners; '-' and '|' for
the tops and sides, respectively. In an ideal world, these things would be configurable.
• The continuation prefix and suffix characters, '<' and '>', respectively, are also not configurable:
• When reading table input, any data ending with ">" will be considered to be continued by the next
row of data. To avoid this, use -input=simple.
• When selecting noncontiguous fields (ie: -f1,4>) without field names, the default field names will
be consecutively numbered from 1, which is counter-intuitive to the original selection. To avoid
this, name the fields using the -title=... option.
perl v5.36.0 2022-10-13 SHOWTABLE(1p)