shcol 0.3

Description:

shcol 0.3

shcol is a shell columnizer that works in a similar way as the Unix-tool ls
does when rendering directory contents.
Some examples:
>>> import shcol
>>> shcol.print_filenames() # print contents of current directory
bin LICENSE MANIFEST.in setup.py testsuite
build Makefile README.md shcol
>>> shcol.print_filenames('testsuite') # print contents of a subdirectory
test_cli.py test_core.py test_highlevel.py test_script.py
test_cli.pyc test_core.pyc test_highlevel.pyc test_script.pyc
>>> shcol.print_filenames('testsuite/*.py') # only print `*.py`-files
testsuite/test_cli.py testsuite/test_highlevel.py
testsuite/test_core.py testsuite/test_script.py
>>> shcol.print_filenames('~/shcol', hide_dotted=False) # like `ls -A ~/shcol`
bin .git Makefile README.md shcol
build LICENSE MANIFEST.in setup.py testsuite

shcol can also columnize the attribute names of a Python-object:
>>> shcol.print_sorted(shcol)
__author__ config helpers __package__ print_columnized_mapping
__builtins__ core highlevel __path__ print_filenames
cli __doc__ __license__ print_attrs __version__
columnize __file__ __name__ print_columnized
>>> shcol.print_sorted(shcol, spacing=5)
__author__ core __license__ print_columnized
__builtins__ __doc__ __name__ print_columnized_mapping
cli __file__ __package__ print_filenames
columnize helpers __path__ __version__
config highlevel print_attrs

Note that the spacing-parameter as shown above works with all kinds of
print_*-functions in shcol.
You can also tell a print_*-function to use a specific line width for
its output:
>>> shcol.print_sorted(shcol, spacing=5, line_width=60)
__author__ __file__ print_attrs
__builtins__ helpers print_columnized
cli highlevel print_columnized_mapping
columnize __license__ print_filenames
config __name__ __version__
core __package__
__doc__ __path__

Note that by default the terminal’s width is used as the line width.
And of course, you can columnize arbitrary names with shcol:
>>> shcol.print_columnized(['foo', 'bar', 'baz'], spacing=7)
foo bar baz
>>> shcol.print_columnized(['foo', 'bar', 'baz'], spacing=7, sort_items=True)
bar baz foo

The following example demonstrates that sorting is locale-aware. Note the
German umlaut in it. Hint: You need German as your default locale setting
to reproduce that in your Python interpreter:
>>> shcol.print_columnized(['foo', 'bär', 'baz'], sort_items=True)
bär baz foo

You can see that shcol handles Unicode-characters as you would expect it.
In case you need the raw columnized string you can get that directly:
>>> shcol.columnize(['foo', 'bär', 'baz'], sort_items=True) # on Python 2.7
u'b\xe4r baz foo'
>>> shcol.columnize(['foo', 'bär', 'baz'], sort_items=True) # on Python 3.x
'bär baz foo'

shcol has its focus on usability and speed. Even large lists will be
rendered relatively fast (like shcol.print_filenames('/usr/bin')).
Just give it a try if you like it and feel free to give some feedback. :-)