tabulate

Align data in columns using heuristics to find suitable column sizes that minimize the amount of wasted space. Useful for files like access logs where some lines have columns that are much larger than than the rest of the lines.

$ cat input.txt
aaa bbb ccc
a   b   c
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bb cc
aaaaa b ccccc
aaa bb ccc
aaaa bb cccc
aaa bb ccc
aaa bb ccc
aaaaa b ccccc
aaa bb ccc
aaa bb ccc
aaaaa b ccccc
$ tabulate <input.txt
aaa       bbb  ccc
a         b    c
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  bb  cc
aaaaa     b    ccccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaaa      bb   cccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaaaa     b    ccccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaaaa     b    ccccc
$ tabulate -t <input.txt
aaa       bbb  ccc
a         b    c
aaaaaaa…  bb   cc
aaaaa     b    ccccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaaa      bb   cccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaaaa     b    ccccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaa       bb   ccc
aaaaa     b    ccccc

Installing

cargo install tabulate

Options

Usage: tabulate [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -t, --truncate [<LIST>...]
          Truncate data that does not fit in a column. Takes an optional list of columns that should be
          truncated. If no LIST is given all columns are truncated
  -c, --compress-cols <RATIO>
          Number between 0.0 and 1.0 that controls how much columns are compressed. Set to 0 to disable
          column compression, i.e. columns are sized to fit the largest value [default: 1.0]
  -n, --estimate-count <N>
          Estimate column sizes from the first N lines. The value 0 means all lines [default: 1000]
  -i, --include <LIST>...
          Select which columns to include in the output
  -x, --exclude <LIST>...
          Select which columns should be excluded from the output. This option takes precedence over
          --include
  -d, --delimiter <DELIM>
          Use characters of DELIM as column delimiters [default: " \t"]
  -o, --output-delimiter <DELIM>
          Specify the delimiter to use to separate columns in the output [default: "  "]
  -s, --strict
          Parse columns as strictly being delimited by a single delimiter
      --online
          Print lines during column size estimation phase
      --column-info
          Print information about the columns
  -h, --help
          Print help information
  -V, --version
          Print version information

LIST should be a comma-separated list of ranges. Each range should be of one of the following forms:

  N       N'th column, starting at 1
  N-      from N'th column to end of line
  N-M     from N'th to M'th column
  -M      from first to M'th column