2.1 KiB
LineFormatter
Arduino library to enhance the layout of tabular data on serial output,
Description
LineFormatter is a wrapper class for Serial (and other streams) to enhance layout of tabular data.
The class intercepts the TAB characters printed and replaces them with spaces to the next defined tab-position. These positions can be created with addTab(n) for absolute positions and andRelTab(n) for relative positions.
Absolute tab positions must be added in increasing order as the class does not check the input. Also adding same value twice is not checked for. The maximum number of tabs is defined by MAX_TAB_STOPS == 10 default. This value canbe overruled by -D compile flag or edited in the LineFormatter.h file.
Tab positions can be cleared by clearTabs(). This removes all tabs in one call.
The function autoNewLine(n) prints a newline after every n lines. This makes it easier to count the lines in a table. Setting n to 0 disables this function.
The function gotoPos(n) prints spaces until the cursor is on position n. Besides for tabular data, this function can be used to make simple text based graphs, e.g. a histogram (see examples).
The function repeat(n, s, nl) which repeats a certain character or a string n times. This is followed by nl newlines which is zero by default. repeat() is useful to make separator lines or to print several newlines at once.
The function setMaxLength(n) to cut off (brute force, no intelligence) lines after n characters by injecting an extra newline. This prevents scrolling hundreds of positions to the right e.g. when copying a file from disk to Serial. Setting the value to 0 results in no maximum line length. Note: the maximum value is 255.
Debugging
For debugging purposes there are the following functions:
- getPos() - returns current position
- resetLineCount() - sets internal lineCounter to zero
- getLineCount() - returns current line number (since last reset)
- getTabCount() - get the number of tab positions added.
- printRuler() - prints a dotted line with 5 and 10 markers, and # for tab positions.
Operational
See examples