Python Adventures

Problem
Instead of simply printing some data on the screen, I wanted to put them in a nicely formatted ASCII table.

Solution
After some research I found a nice package for this purpose: python-tabulate. It supports both Python 2 and Python 3 (yes, from now on it’s also important for me).

Its usage is very simple. Here is a snippet that creates random usernames and passwords:

from tabulate import tabulate

table = []
headers = ["Username #1", "Username #2", "Password #1", "Password #2"]
for _ in range(10):
    name1 = get_username_1()
    name2 = get_username_2()
    pass1 = get_password_1(8)
    pass2 = get_password_2(12)
    table.append([name1, name2, pass1, pass2])
#        print("{:15}{:15}{:15}{:15}".format(name1, name2, pass1, pass2))    # this is the past :)
print(tabulate(table, headers=headers, tablefmt="psql"))

Output:

+---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
| Username #1   | Username #2   | Password #1   | Password #2   |
|---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------|
| Adarah        | hasana        | ygyQsF6u      | uTzPqZMDNJ6x  |
| Alary         | begahi        | YqW4aY7q      | ipZuX0sX2RFg  |
| Solita        | otomot        | Xwliu9yi      | IjeFibVFaoZq  |
| Casony        | rikari        | fw6dk5gt      | zbAXO8gd33Lh  |
| Anne          | asakou        | MXsXpz43      | aYNiJTwojULG  |
| Joby          | mgomam        | vZjiCuyT      | qc3Q9caAenJw  |
| Kallita       | aremon        | j1ZD1QU9      | AIEsykmYodfy  |
| Cara          | iumina        | 75UzkKgK      | lK92GdAxn441  |
| Fuscie        | goomio        | uof2C7ct      | HFgVlAZ9PSmv  |
| Dean          | utinon        | gycncz9f      | 61oJzUGdDVKf  |
+---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+

The module supports various formatting styles. For more examples, check out the official page.

Update (20191029)

The project has moved to https://github.com/astanin/python-tabulate .