shcol 0.1-dev

A shell columnizer

Generate columnized output for given string items.

Example:

>>> import shcol
>>> items = dir(shcol)
>>> print shcol.columnize(items)
ColumnWidthCalculator  __all__       __name__     functools
Formatter              __builtins__  __package__  locale
LineProperties         __doc__       collections  os
_DefaultLocale         __file__      columnize    unicode_literals

The same will work for file listings:

>>> import os
>>> print shcol.columnize(os.listdir('/'))
selinux  bin   etc             lib64  media       usr         sbin  proc
run      root  initrd.img.old  sys    tmp         initrd.img  lib   dev
home     boot  srv             var    lost+found  vmlinuz     opt   mnt

For convenience shcol can sort the output for you:

>>> print shcol.columnize(os.listdir('/'), sort_items=True)
bin   etc         initrd.img.old  lost+found  opt   run      srv  usr
boot  home        lib             media       proc  sbin     sys  var
dev   initrd.img  lib64           mnt         root  selinux  tmp  vmlinuz

That result should be pretty equivalent to what a call to ls / on your commandline would give you.

You are free to change the number of blank characters between these columns:

>>> print shcol.columnize(os.listdir('/'), spacing=4, sort_items=True)
bin     home              lib64         opt     sbin       tmp
boot    initrd.img        lost+found    proc    selinux    usr
dev     initrd.img.old    media         root    srv        var
etc     lib               mnt           run     sys        vmlinuz

shcol has its focus on speed, features and usability, though it is in an early development state. See the source code for details on what shcol is currently able to do for you.