Cell alignment based on content like in Excel

[Skeeve]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

As stated in #299 I do not know the data I get in my app and keeping track of the "numericality" seems like duplicate work to me.

As I proposed there, maybe an automatic cell alignement similar to Excel (or any other spreadsheet program) could be useful to some.

I would have expected that text.AlignDefault would do this, but it applies to the whole column and is based on the "common denominator" of all cells in the column.

To not break compatibility, this behavior cannot be changed.

Describe the solution you'd like

I propose a new text.AutoCell alignment, which alignes cells based on its content:

• numerical Cells: text.AlignRight
• all others: text.AlignLeft

Of course this only works for text and html tables. Markdown, csv, and tsv won't benefit.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Alternatively everyone wanting numbers to be auto aligned right and and text in the same column left, has no choice. They have to decide for one of those.

Additional context

I already had a go at the implementation and it seems to work.

Perhaps what I have done is a little too crude for your taste, but I would like to discuss it with you.

[jedib0t]

I haven't forgotten this suggestion from the other PR of yours. Give me some time to think about this, real-life-work is keeping me busy.

[Skeeve]

no issue. I implemented it in the proposal/AutoCellAlignment, just in case you're interested. I didn't create a pull request yet.

[jedib0t]

Solved it a little differently to account for all usages of text.Align* in a new branch align-auto: https://github.com/jedib0t/go-pretty/compare/main...align-auto --- suboptimal when AlignAuto is used in ColumnConfig as this will result in a RegExp parse for all column values, but it will have to do for now until a major version bump where I can pass in the actual object to Align instead of the stringified form.

Try it and let me know if that works for you.

[Skeeve]

Try it and let me know if that works for you.

That works for me! Thanks a lot!

as this will result in a RegExp parse for all column values

1. Why not use ParseFloat, checking the error, like you do in sorting? \ if _, err := strconv.ParseFloat(text, 64); err == nil { works fine
2. Did you think about sorting?

I'm currently experimenting with my fork, how to properly sort mixed-columns.

[Skeeve]

P.S.: I've implemented, as a proposal, in my sort-auto an AscAuto and DscAuto which will group Numbers before Text and sort both of them numerically resp. textually, ignoring case.

[jedib0t]

I've fixed Sorting to take into account missing cells in a new commit on the same branch.

AscAuto and DscAuto is not the way to approach this. What if someone wants Alpha before Numbers? Will think more on this later.

[jedib0t]

Release with fix(es): https://github.com/jedib0t/go-pretty/releases/tag/v6.5.5

[Skeeve]

AscAuto and DscAuto is not the way to approach this. What if someone wants Alpha before Numbers? Will think more on this later.

Fair enough. With breaking compatibility I would go for:

Asc, Dsc -> As is

AscNumeric, DscNumeric -> Sort Numbers before Alpha and sort both independently

AscAlpha, DscAlpha -> Sort Alpha before Numbers and sort both independently

Please also consider ignoring case when sorting. While it is logical for programmers that "a" comes after "Z", it's illogical for non-programmers which will use the programs.

Maybe add IgnoreCase bool to type SortBy?

[jedib0t]

Maybe add IgnoreCase bool to type SortBy?

That sounds like a good feature. Want to contribute a PR? If not, I'll get it done in the near future.

[Skeeve]

I will try.

[Skeeve]

See #309