cc.pretty

A pretty printer for rendering data structures in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

In order to display something using cc.pretty, you build up a series of documents. These behave a little bit like strings; you can concatenate them together and then print them to the screen.

However, documents also allow you to control how they should be printed. There are several functions (such as nest and group) which allow you to control the "layout" of the document. When you come to display the document, the 'best' (most compact) layout is used.

The structure of this module is based on A Prettier Printer.

Usage

• Print a table to the terminal

  local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  pretty.pretty_print({ 1, 2, 3 })
  

• Build a custom document and display it

  local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  pretty.print(pretty.group(pretty.text("hello") .. pretty.space_line .. pretty.text("world")))
  

Changes

• New in version 1.87.0

emptySource

An empty document.

spaceSource

A document with a single space in it.

lineSource

A line break. When collapsed with group, this will be replaced with empty.

space_lineSource

A line break. When collapsed with group, this will be replaced with space.

text(text [, colour])Source

Create a new document from a string.

If your string contains multiple lines, group will flatten the string into a single line, with spaces between each line.

Parameters

1. text string The string to construct a new document with.
2. colour? number The colour this text should be printed with. If not given, we default to the current colour.

Returns

1. Doc The document with the provided text.

Usage

• Write some blue text.

  local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  pretty.print(pretty.text("Hello!", colours.blue))
  

concat(...)Source

Concatenate several documents together. This behaves very similar to string concatenation.

Parameters

1. ... Doc | string The documents to concatenate.

Returns

1. Doc The concatenated documents.

Usage

• local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  local doc1, doc2 = pretty.text("doc1"), pretty.text("doc2")
  print(pretty.concat(doc1, " - ", doc2))
  print(doc1 .. " - " .. doc2) -- Also supports ..
  

nest(depth, doc)Source

Indent later lines of the given document with the given number of spaces.

For instance, nesting the document

foo
bar

by two spaces will produce

foo
  bar

Parameters

1. depth number The number of spaces with which the document should be indented.
2. doc Doc The document to indent.

Returns

1. Doc The nested document.

Usage

• local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  print(pretty.nest(2, pretty.text("foo\nbar")))
  

group(doc)Source

Builds a document which is displayed on a single line if there is enough room, or as normal if not.

Parameters

1. doc Doc The document to group.

Returns

1. Doc The grouped document.

Usage

• Uses group to show things being displayed on one or multiple lines.

  local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  local doc = pretty.group("Hello" .. pretty.space_line .. "World")
  print(pretty.render(doc, 5)) -- On multiple lines
  print(pretty.render(doc, 20)) -- Collapsed onto one.
  

write(doc [, ribbon_frac=0.6])Source

Display a document on the terminal.

Parameters

1. doc Doc The document to render
2. ribbon_frac? number = 0.6 The maximum fraction of the width that we should write in.

print(doc [, ribbon_frac=0.6])Source

Display a document on the terminal with a trailing new line.

Parameters

1. doc Doc The document to render.
2. ribbon_frac? number = 0.6 The maximum fraction of the width that we should write in.

render(doc [, width [, ribbon_frac=0.6]])Source

Render a document, converting it into a string.

Parameters

1. doc Doc The document to render.
2. width? number The maximum width of this document. Note that long strings will not be wrapped to fit this width - it is only used for finding the best layout.
3. ribbon_frac? number = 0.6 The maximum fraction of the width that we should write in.

Returns

1. string The rendered document as a string.

pretty(obj [, options])Source

Pretty-print an arbitrary object, converting it into a document.

This can then be rendered with write or print.

Parameters

1. obj The object to pretty-print.
2. options? { function_args = boolean, function_source = boolean }

   Controls how various properties are displayed.

   • function_args: Show the arguments to a function if known (false by default).
   • function_source: Show where the function was defined, instead of function: xxxxxxxx (false by default).

Returns

1. Doc The object formatted as a document.

Usage

• Display a table on the screen

  local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  pretty.print(pretty.pretty({ 1, 2, 3 }))
  

See also

• pretty_print for a shorthand to prettify and print an object.

Changes

• Changed in version 1.88.0: Added options argument.

pretty_print(obj [, options [, ribbon_frac=0.6]])Source

A shortcut for calling pretty and print together.

Parameters

1. obj The object to pretty-print.
2. options? { function_args = boolean, function_source = boolean }

   Controls how various properties are displayed.

   • function_args: Show the arguments to a function if known (false by default).
   • function_source: Show where the function was defined, instead of function: xxxxxxxx (false by default).
3. ribbon_frac? number = 0.6 The maximum fraction of the width that we should write in.

Usage

• Display a table on the screen.

  local pretty = require "cc.pretty"
  pretty.pretty_print({ 1, 2, 3 })
  

See also

• pretty
• print

Changes

• New in version 1.99

Types

Doc

A document containing formatted text, with multiple possible layouts.

Documents effectively represent a sequence of strings in alternative layouts, which we will try to print in the most compact form necessary.