---
name: "Text::FormatTable"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libtext-formattable-perl"
version: "1.03-3"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Text::FormatTable"
---

# Text::FormatTable(3pm)

Format text tables

## NAME

Text::FormatTable - Format text tables

## SYNOPSIS

```
 my $table = Text::FormatTable->new('r|l');
 $table->head('a', 'b');
 $table->rule('=');
 $table->row('c', 'd');
 print $table->render(20);
```

## DESCRIPTION

Text::FormatTable renders simple tables as text. You pass to the constructor (*new*) a table format specification similar to LaTeX (e.g. `"r|l|5l|R|20L"`) and you call methods to fill the table data and insert rules. After the data is filled, you call the *render* method and the table gets formatted as text.

Methods:

- **new**(*$format*)

  Create a Text::FormatTable object, the format of each column is specified as a character of the `$format` string. The following formats are defined:

  - l

    Left-justified top aligned word-wrapped text.

  - L

    Left-justified bottom aligned word-wrapped text.

  - r

    Right-justified top aligned word-wrapped text.

  - R

    Right-justified bottom aligned word-wrapped text.

  - 10R, 20r, 15L, 12l,

    Number is fixed width of the column. Justified and aligned word-wrapped text (see above).

  - ' '

    A space.

  - \|

    Column separator.

- **head**(*$col1*, *$col2*, ...)

  Add a header row using `$col1`, `$col2`, etc. as cell contents. Note that, at the moment, header rows are treated like normal rows.

- **row**(*$col1*, *$col2*, ...)

  Add a row with `$col1`, `$col2`, etc. as cell contents.

- **rule**(\[*$char*\])

  Add an horizontal rule. If `$char` is specified it will be used as character to draw the rule, otherwise '-' will be used.

- **render**(\[*$screen\_width*\])

  Return the rendered table formatted with `$screen_width` or 79 if it is not specified.

## SEE ALSO

Text::ASCIITable

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2001-2004 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.\
           (c) 2009 Trey Harris All Rights Reserved.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

## CODE REPOSITORY

Git - http://github.com/treyharris/Text-FormatTable/tree/master

## AUTHOR

David Schweikert \<dws@ee.ethz.ch\>

Maintained by Trey Harris \<treyharris@gmail.com\>

Fixed column width and bottom alignment written by Veselin Slavov \<vslavov@creditreform.bg\>