
Description
Print beautiful, flexible tables to the terminal using Ink. This library powers many oclif/Salesforce CLIs and is built for real-world, production output: wide columns, multi-line cells, smart wrapping/truncation, theming, and great CI behavior.
Features
- Rich rendering via Ink with graceful fallback to plain text in CI
- Automatic column sizing with max/explicit width support (including percentages)
- Per-column alignment, padding, and overflow control (wrap, truncate, middle/start/end)
- Header formatting with
change-casepresets or custom function - Multiple border styles (outline, headers-only, vertical/horizontal, none, and more)
- Sort and filter data, optionally per-column
- Print multiple tables side-by-side or stacked with layout controls
- Return a string (
makeTable) or print directly (printTable/printTables) - TypeScript-first API with excellent types
Requirements
- Node.js >= 18
- ESM only (this package has
"type": "module"). Useimport, notrequire.
Installation
npm install @oclif/table
# or
yarn add @oclif/table
# or
pnpm add @oclif/table
# or
bun add @oclif/table
Quick start
import {printTable} from '@oclif/table'
const data = [
{name: 'Alice', role: 'Engineer', notes: 'Loves distributed systems'},
{name: 'Bob', role: 'Designer', notes: 'Enjoys typography and UI'},
]
printTable({
title: 'Team',
data,
columns: [
{key: 'name', width: 16},
{key: 'role', width: 14, horizontalAlignment: 'center'},
{key: 'notes', overflow: 'wrap'},
],
})
To generate a string instead of printing to stdout:
import {makeTable} from '@oclif/table'
const output = makeTable({data, columns: ['name', 'role', 'notes']})
// do something with `output`
To print multiple tables in one layout:
import {printTables} from '@oclif/table'
printTables(
[
{title: 'Developers', data, columns: ['name', 'role']},
{title: 'Notes', data, columns: ['notes']},
],
{direction: 'row', columnGap: 4, margin: 1},
)
API
printTable(options)— renders a single table to stdout.makeTable(options): string— renders a single table and returns the output string.printTables(tables, options?)— renders multiple tables with layout controls.
All three accept the same TableOptions<T> (documented below). printTables accepts an array of TableOptions plus optional container layout props.
TypeScript
import type {TableOptions} from '@oclif/table'
type Row = {name: string; age: number}
const opts: TableOptions<Row> = {
data: [{name: 'Ada', age: 36}],
columns: [
{key: 'name', name: 'Full Name'},
{key: 'age', horizontalAlignment: 'right'},
],
}
Options reference
Below are the most important options with defaults and behavior. See examples in ./examples for more patterns.
data(required): array of rows, each a plain object.columns: list of keys or objects describing each column.- String form:
'name'(uses key as header) - Object form:
{ key, name?, width?, padding?, overflow?, horizontalAlignment?, verticalAlignment? }name: header label (defaults to key or formatted withheaderOptions.formatter)width: number of characters or percentage string like'50%'padding: spaces added on both sides (default: tablepadding)overflow:'wrap' | 'truncate' | 'truncate-start' | 'truncate-middle' | 'truncate-end'horizontalAlignment:'left' | 'center' | 'right'verticalAlignment:'top' | 'center' | 'bottom'
- String form:
padding(number): cell padding for all columns. Default:1.maxWidth(number | percentage | 'none'): maximum table width. Defaults to terminal width.- When the natural table width exceeds
maxWidth, columns shrink and content wraps/truncates based onoverflow. - Use
'none'to allow unlimited width (useful for very wide outputs; users can resize their terminals).
- When the natural table width exceeds
width(number | percentage): exact table width. OverridesmaxWidth. If wider than the natural width, columns expand evenly.overflow: cell overflow behavior. Default:'truncate'.'wrap'wraps long content'truncate'truncates the end'truncate-start' | 'truncate-middle' | 'truncate-end'choose truncation position
headerOptions: style options for headers.formatter: either a function(header: string) => stringor achange-casepreset name:'camelCase' | 'capitalCase' | 'constantCase' | 'kebabCase' | 'pascalCase' | 'sentenceCase' | 'snakeCase'- Styling keys (also supported by
titleOptions):color,backgroundColor(named color, hex#rrggbb, orrgb(r,g,b))bold,dimColor,italic,underline,strikethrough,inverse
- Default header style is bold blue (unless
noStyle: true).
borderStyle: border preset. Default:'all'.- Available:
'all' | 'headers-only' | 'headers-only-with-outline' | 'headers-only-with-underline' | 'horizontal' | 'horizontal-with-outline' | 'none' | 'outline' | 'vertical' | 'vertical-rows-with-outline' | 'vertical-with-outline'
- Available:
borderColor: optional border color. When unset, the terminal's default color is used.horizontalAlignment: default column alignment. Default:'left'.verticalAlignment: default vertical alignment within cells. Default:'top'.filter(row): predicate to include/exclude rows.sort: object mapping keys to'asc' | 'desc' | (a,b)=>number. Keys order defines multi-column priority.title: optional string printed above the table.titleOptions: style options for the title (same keys asheaderOptionsexceptformatter).trimWhitespace: when wrapping text, trim whitespace at line boundaries. Default:true.noStyle: disable all styling. Also strips ANSI color codes from your cell content for accurate width calculation.
Container options (for printTables)
printTables(tables, containerOptions) accepts:
direction:'row' | 'column'(default'row')columnGap,rowGap: spacing between tablesalignItems:'flex-start' | 'center' | 'flex-end'margin,marginLeft,marginRight,marginTop,marginBottom
Behavior and environment variables
Terminal width detection: by default we use your terminal width. Override with
OCLIF_TABLE_COLUMN_OVERRIDE.- Example:
OCLIF_TABLE_COLUMN_OVERRIDE=120 node app.js
- Example:
CI-safe output: in CI environments, we automatically fall back to a plain-text renderer (no Ink) for stability.
- To force Ink rendering in CI, set
OCLIF_TABLE_SKIP_CI_CHECK=1.
- To force Ink rendering in CI, set
Very large data: by default, datasets with 10,000+ rows use the plain-text renderer to avoid memory issues.
- Override with
OCLIF_TABLE_LIMIT=<number>(Salesforce CLIs may also honorSF_TABLE_LIMIT).
- Override with
Advanced examples
Header formatting with change-case:
import {printTable} from '@oclif/table'
printTable({
data: [{first_name: 'Ada', last_name: 'Lovelace'}],
columns: ['first_name', 'last_name'],
headerOptions: {formatter: 'capitalCase'},
})
Per-column sizing and overflow:
printTable({
data: [{name: 'A very very long name', notes: 'Multi-line\ncontent supported'}],
maxWidth: '80%',
columns: [
{key: 'name', width: 20, overflow: 'truncate-middle'},
{key: 'notes', overflow: 'wrap', horizontalAlignment: 'right'},
],
})
Switching borders and colors:
printTable({
title: 'Inventory',
titleOptions: {bold: true, color: 'cyan'},
data: [{item: 'Widget', qty: 10}],
columns: ['item', {key: 'qty', horizontalAlignment: 'right'}],
borderStyle: 'vertical-with-outline',
borderColor: 'green',
})
Examples directory
This repo contains many runnable examples in ./examples (including edge cases like very wide/very tall tables). Run any with:
tsx examples/basic.ts
Testing
This package includes snapshot tests for all examples to ensure consistent output across different environments.
Running tests
# Run all tests (including snapshot tests)
yarn test
# Run only snapshot tests
yarn test:examples
# Update snapshots after intentional changes
yarn test:examples:update
How snapshot testing works
Examples are executed in an isolated child process with:
- Fixed terminal width (
OCLIF_TABLE_COLUMN_OVERRIDE=120) - Disabled CI detection unless an example sets it
- ESM loader for TypeScript (
ts-node/esm)
Snapshots live in test/__snapshots__/examples/*.txt and mirror the examples directory structure.
Contributing
See the contributing guide.
License
MIT © Salesforce