Table Display

Adds support for displaying your ActiveRecord tables, named scopes, collections, or plain arrays in a table view when working in rails console, shell, or email template.

Enumerable#to_table_display returns the printable strings; Object#pt calls #to_table_display on its first argument and puts out the result.

Columns you haven't loaded (eg. from using :select) are omitted, and derived/calculated columns (eg. again, from using :select) are added.

Both #to_table_display and Object#pt methods take :only, :except, and :methods which change what attributes/methods are output, like they do on the #to_xml method.

The normal output uses #inspect on the data values to make them printable, so you can see what type the values had. When that's inconvenient or you'd prefer direct display, you can pass the option :inspect => false to disable inspection.

Example

You can call the to_table_display method:

>> puts Project.find(31).tasks.to_table_display
+----+------------+------------------------+------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
| id | project_id | description            | due_on           | completed_at                   | created_at                     | updated_at                     |
+----+------------+------------------------+------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
|  1 |         31 | "Write a handy plugin" | Wed, 25 Mar 2009 | Tue Mar 24 23:17:05 +1300 2009 | Mon Mar 23 09:11:02 +1300 2009 | Tue Mar 24 23:17:05 +1300 2009 |
|  2 |         31 | "Blog the plugin"      | Sun, 05 Apr 2009 | nil                            | Mon Mar 23 09:11:46 +1300 2009 | Mon Mar 23 09:11:46 +1300 2009 |
+----+------------+------------------------+------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+

Or equivalently, use pt (like pp, but in a table):

>> pt Customer.find(31).purchases
+----+------------+------------------------+------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
| id | project_id | description            | due_on           | completed_at                   | created_at                     | updated_at                     |
+----+------------+------------------------+------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
|  1 |         31 | "Write a handy plugin" | Wed, 25 Mar 2009 | Tue Mar 24 23:17:05 +1300 2009 | Mon Mar 23 09:11:02 +1300 2009 | Tue Mar 24 23:17:05 +1300 2009 |
|  2 |         31 | "Blog the plugin"      | Sun, 05 Apr 2009 | nil                            | Mon Mar 23 09:11:46 +1300 2009 | Mon Mar 23 09:11:46 +1300 2009 |
+----+------------+------------------------+------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+

Like to_xml, you can pass a :methods option to add the output methods on your models, and you can pass :only or :except to (respectively) show only certain columns or show all except certain columns:

>> puts Customer.find(31).purchases.to_table_display(:only => [:id, :description], :methods => [:met_due_date?])
+----+------------------------+---------------+
| id | description            | met_due_date? |
+----+------------------------+---------------+
|  1 | "Write a handy plugin" | true          |
|  2 | "Blog the plugin"      | nil           |
+----+------------------------+---------------+

pt accepts and passes on all options as well:

>> pt Customer.find(31).purchases, :only => [:id, :description], :methods => [:met_due_date?]
+----+------------------------+---------------+
| id | description            | met_due_date? |
+----+------------------------+---------------+
|  1 | "Write a handy plugin" | true          |
|  2 | "Blog the plugin"      | nil           |
+----+------------------------+---------------+

There's a convenient equivalent syntax for displaying an ordered list of columns, like :only and :methods:

>> puts Customer.find(31).purchases.to_table_display :id, :description, :met_due_date?

which provides:

>> pt Customer.find(31).purchases, :id, :description, :met_due_date?

resulting in the same output as above.

If :inspect => false is used, the values will be shown in #to_s form rather than #inspect form:

>> pt Customer.find(31).purchases, :only => [:id, :description, :due_on, :completed_at]
+----+----------------------+------------+--------------------------------+
| id | description          | due_on     | completed_at                   |
+----+----------------------+------------+--------------------------------+
|  1 | Write a handy plugin | 2009-03-25 | Tue Mar 24 23:17:05 +1300 2009 |
|  2 | Blog the plugin      | 2009-04-05 |                                |
+----+----------------------+------------+--------------------------------+

It is possible to use objects that respond to #call -- such as methods or procs -- to set up columns. They will be passed the record as their sole argument. If these have names (as with methods), those will be used as the headers. Otherwise, the default to_s behaviour will be used.

Note that in all cases, values whose class descends from Numeric are right-aligned, while all other values are left-aligned.

Thanks

Michael Fowler (@mkrfowler)