Print a spicy-formatted ASCII table

User-facing helper that prints a visually aligned, spicy-styled ASCII table created by functions such as freq() or cross_tab(). It automatically adjusts column alignment, spacing, and separators for improved readability in console outputs.

This function wraps the internal renderer build_ascii_table(), adding optional titles, notes, and automatic alignment rules depending on the type of table.

Usage

spicy_print_table(
  x,
  title = attr(x, "title"),
  note = attr(x, "note"),
  padding = 2L,
  first_column_line = TRUE,
  row_total_line = TRUE,
  column_total_line = TRUE,
  bottom_line = FALSE,
  lines_color = "darkgrey",
  align_left_cols = NULL,
  align_center_cols = integer(0),
  group_sep_rows = integer(0),
  total_row_idx = attr(x, "total_row_idx"),
  ...
)

Arguments

x

A spicy_table or data.frame to be printed.

title

Optional title displayed above the table. Defaults to the "title" attribute of x if present.

note

Optional note displayed below the table. Defaults to the "note" attribute of x if present.

padding

Non-negative integer giving the number of extra characters added to each column's auto-computed width (max of cell-content width and header width). Defaults to 2L. See build_ascii_table() for the precise formula and the migration note from the pre-0.11.0 string enum.

first_column_line

Logical. If TRUE (the default), adds a vertical separator after the first column.

row_total_line, column_total_line, bottom_line

Logical flags controlling the presence of horizontal lines before total rows/columns or at the bottom of the table. Both row_total_line and column_total_line default to TRUE; bottom_line defaults to FALSE.

lines_color

Character. Color for table separators. Defaults to "darkgrey". Only applied if the output supports ANSI colors (see crayon::has_color()).

align_left_cols

Integer vector of column indices to left-align. If NULL (the default), alignment is auto-detected based on x:

• For freq tables -> c(1, 2)

• For cross tables -> 1

align_center_cols

Integer vector of column indices to center-align. Defaults to integer(0).

group_sep_rows

Integer vector of row indices before which a light dashed separator line is drawn. Defaults to integer(0).

total_row_idx

Optional integer vector of 1-based row indices identifying the totals rows; defaults to the "total_row_idx" attribute of x (set by cross_tab()). See build_ascii_table().

...

Additional arguments passed to build_ascii_table().

Value

Invisibly returns x, after printing the formatted ASCII table to the console.

Details

spicy_print_table() detects whether the table represents frequencies (freq-style) or cross-tabulations (cross-style) and adjusts formatting accordingly:

• For frequency tables, the first two columns (Category and Values) are left-aligned.

• For cross tables, only the first column (row variable) is left-aligned.

The function supports Unicode line-drawing characters and colored separators using the crayon package, with graceful fallback to monochrome output when color is not supported. If the table exceeds the console width, it is split into stacked horizontal panels while repeating the left-most identifier columns.

See also

build_ascii_table() for the underlying text rendering engine. print.spicy_freq_table() for the specialized printing method used by freq().

Examples

# Simple demonstration
df <- data.frame(
  Category = c("Valid", "", "Missing", "Total"),
  Values = c("Yes", "No", "NA", ""),
  Freq. = c(12, 8, 1, 21),
  Percent = c(57.1, 38.1, 4.8, 100.0)
)

spicy_print_table(df,
  title = "Frequency table: Example",
  note = "Class: data.frame\nData: demo"
)
#> Frequency table: Example
#> 
#>  Category   │ Values      Freq.    Percent 
#> ────────────┼──────────────────────────────
#>  Valid      │ Yes            12       57.1 
#>             │ No              8       38.1 
#>  Missing    │ NA              1        4.8 
#> ────────────┼──────────────────────────────
#>  Total      │                21        100 
#> 
#> Class: data.frame
#> Data: demo