vistab 1.0.1

A simple module for creating ASCII tables

vistab

vistab is a lightweight, zero-dependency Python module for creating beautiful text-based ASCII/Unicode tables. It comes out-of-the-box with support for fluid terminal formatting (ANSI escape sequences), coordinate-based discrete cell styling, and guarantees consistent string lengths across dense color variations.

Key Features

• Zero-Dependency Core: Operates purely off the Python standard library with intelligent fallbacks.
• Color-Aware Word Wrapping: Dynamically measures and wraps table widths natively over embedded invisible ANSI formatting sequences without breaking table structural geometry.
• Coordinate-Based Styling API: Fluently colorize rows, columns, headers, or discrete cells declaratively (e.g. set_header_style(bg="red", bold=True)).
• Hierarchical TOML Configurations: Persist your favorite table paddings and layout themes cross-project using a localized .vistab.toml.
• Advanced Data Parsing: Injects automatic text wrapping arrays, infers dynamic scientific datatypes, and parses robust CSVs intuitively.

Installation

You can install vistab directly via pip:

pip install vistab

Note: For complex Asian/CJK full-width character wrapping support, install the optional component using pip install vistab[cjk].

Quick Start

Getting started with vistab is simple. Initialize a Vistab instance, set up column alignments and paddings, and append your rows!

from vistab import Vistab

table = Vistab(style="round2", padding=1)
# Left, Right, Center alignment
table.set_cols_align(["l", "r", "c"])
# Top, Middle, Bottom vertical alignment
table.set_cols_valign(["t", "m", "b"])

table.add_rows([
    ["Name", "Age", "Nickname"],
    ["Ms\nSarah\nJones", 27, "Sarah"],
    ["Mr\nJohn\nDoe", 45, "Johnny"],
    ["Dr\nEmma\nBrown", 34, "Em"]
])

print(table.draw())

Output:

╭─────────┬─────┬───────────╮
│ Name    │ Age │ Nickname  │
╞═════════╪═════╪═══════════╡
│ Ms      │     │           │
│ Sarah   │  27 │           │
│ Jones   │     │   Sarah   │
├─────────┼─────┼───────────┤
│ Mr      │     │           │
│ John    │  45 │           │
│ Doe     │     │  Johnny   │
├─────────┼─────┼───────────┤
│ Dr      │     │           │
│ Emma    │  34 │           │
│ Brown   │     │    Em     │
╰─────────┴─────┴───────────╯

Coordinate-Based Cell Styling

vistab natively supports a fluent, declarative API to inject background colors, foreground colors, and text styles (like bolding and underlining) targeting specific grids—ranging from individual cells, whole rows, columns, headers, or borders—organically applying cleanly without twisting table decorator strings!

Coordinate-Based Word Wrapping (Nested Tables)

If you need absolute structural control over spatial layouts—for example, if you are embedding pre-rendered ascii tables inside the cells of another Vistab—you can bypass the internal word-wrapping engine entirely using coordinate mapping.

By setting wrap=False on specific axes, Vistab guarantees it will preserve your rigid structural spacing verbatim without snapping or aggressively pruning layouts:

# Globally bypass word-wrapping for the entire table
table.set_table_wrap(False)

# Or target specific structural coordinates
table.set_row_wrap(0, False)
table.set_col_wrap(2, False)
table.set_cell_wrap(0, 1, False)

If a cell bypassed with wrap=False physically exceeds table.max_width, Vistab uses an intelligent constraint router (table.on_wrap_conflict = "warn") that securely drops trailing characters while surgically reconstructing your internal ANSI styling sequences to prevent catastrophic terminal boundary collapse!

Hierarchical Configuration System

Stop re-typing your constructor arguments recursively! vistab actively scans your execution environments for TOML configurations natively.

It searches [./.config/vistab.toml, ./.vistab.toml, ~/.config/vistab.toml, ~/.vistab.toml] securely over zero-dependencies.

You can instantly generate a boiler-plate configuration file to test using the CLI command:

vistab --create-config .vistab.toml

Built-in Structural Themes

vistab comes with predefined structural themes rendering cleanly under light, bold, double, ascii, round2, markdown, and more native variants.

You can view a full structural geometry matrix natively printed on your terminal by executing:

vistab -L

The Curated Color Theme Matrix

In addition to ASCII-structural styles, Vistab dynamically mathematically computes 18 fully curated color layout themes utilizing Zebra-Striping natively. You can paint entire layouts instantly using .apply_theme().

The library supports three base color palettes (ocean, forest, minimalist). Each color palette is distributed across six visual geometries matching the systematic format <palette>-<striping>-<index>. For example:

• table.apply_theme("ocean") (Default Alternating Zebra Rows)
• table.apply_theme("ocean-index") (Alternating Rows + First Column Index Highlight applied)
• table.apply_theme("ocean-cols") (Alternating Column Striping)
• table.apply_theme("ocean-solid") (Static Background, No striping)

If these 18 themes aren't enough, you can dynamically construct massive custom matrix libraries securely by pushing a dictionary configuration directly into the global static boundary Vistab.THEMES["my_blue_theme"] = {...} in your own scripts!

View the curated themes rendered beautifully stacked by executing:

vistab -M

Discovering Output Colors (CLI)

Because terminal color renderings vary natively across different user host profiles and color palettes, vistab comes packaged with a native matrix test exposing every foreground, background, and stylistic text augmentation you can safely deploy.

You can view the palette directly on the console by executing:

vistab -C

ANSI Color Layout Support

A major benchmark advantage of vistab is native, invisible terminal styling support. Common ASCII libraries will typically break their visual wrapper alignments when raw terminal colors are embedded because they incorrectly count invisible geometry bytes.

You can view a comprehensive color-wrapping conformance test demonstrating dynamic alignment across complex CJK blocks by executing:

vistab -T

Advanced Formatting (Datatypes)

vistab can infer and parse formatting rules strictly by passing data types, controlling precision dynamically for scientific floats and integers seamlessly.

from vistab import Vistab

table = Vistab(style="ascii")
table.set_cols_dtype(['t', 'f', 'e', 'i', 'a']) 
table.set_cols_align(["l", "r", "r", "r", "l"])

table.add_rows([
    ["text", "float", "exp", "int", "auto"],
    ["alpha", "23.45", 543, 100, 45.67],
    ["beta", 3.1415, 1.23, 78, 56789012345.12],
    ["gamma", 2.718, 2e-3, 56.8, .0000000000128]
])

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License. See LICENSE for details.