From: James Gray <james@...>
Date: 2008-01-29T03:14:07+09:00
Subject: Re: lining up delimiter separated text

On Jan 28, 2008, at 11:44 AM, scooterm@hotmail.com wrote:

> BEFORE:
> fname ;; lname ;; age ;; sex ;;
> homer   ;; simpson ;; 33 ;; male
> maggie;; simpson ;; 03 ;; female
> bart;;simpson;;10;;male
>
> AFTER:
> fname   ;;  lname   ;;  age ;;  sex
> homer   ;;  simpson ;;  33  ;;  male
> maggie  ;;  simpson ;;  03  ;;  female
> bart    ;;  simpson ;;  10  ;;  male
>
> REQUEST:
> Show a really cool way to change before into after with
> ruby. Cool = fewest lines OR just plain clever.

This doesn't perfectly match your output, but it gets close:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby -wKU

def pretty_print(input, sep = ';;')
   data  = input.map { |line| line.chomp.split(/ 
\s*#{Regexp.escape(sep)}\s*/) }
   sizes = (0...data.first.size).map { |i| data.map { |row|  
row[i].size }.max }

   data.inject("") do |output, row|
     output +
     (0...row.size).map { |i| "%-#{sizes[i]}s" % row[i] }.join("  
#{sep} ") + "\n"
   end
end

puts pretty_print(<<END_BEFORE)
fname ;; lname ;; age ;; sex ;;
homer   ;; simpson ;; 33 ;; male
maggie;; simpson ;; 03 ;; female
bart;;simpson;;10;;male
END_BEFORE
# >> fname  ;; lname   ;; age ;; sex
# >> homer  ;; simpson ;; 33  ;; male
# >> maggie ;; simpson ;; 03  ;; female
# >> bart   ;; simpson ;; 10  ;; male

__END__

James Edward Gray II