markdown-table-ts

markdown-table-ts is a zero-dependency library for generating Markdown tables. Since it's written in TypeScript, it comes with type declarations out of the box.

Installation

Grab markdown-table-ts from npm with your favorite package manager.

# npm
npm install markdown-table-ts

# yarn
yarn add markdown-table-ts

Quick start

// Node.js
// const { Align, getMarkdownTable } = require('markdown-table-ts');

// Node.js with TypeScript
import { Align, getMarkdownTable } from 'markdown-table-ts';

const table = getMarkdownTable({
  table: {
    head: ['ID', 'Name', 'Age'],
    body: [
      ['1', 'John',  '26'],
      ['2', 'Bob',   '25'],
      ['3', 'Alice', '23'],
    ],
  },
  alignment: [Align.Left, Align.Center, Align.Right],
});

console.log(table);

// Output:
// | ID  | Name  | Age |
// | :-- | :---: | --: |
// | 1   | John  |  26 |
// | 2   |  Bob  |  25 |
// | 3   | Alice |  23 |

API

getMarkdownTable(params: GetTableInput): string

• generates the corresponding Markdown table based on params
• does not append newline to the end of the resulting table
• throws a MarkdownTableError when something goes wrong.

The underlying structure of GetTableInput looks like this.

enum Align {
  Left   = 'left',
  Right  = 'right',
  Center = 'center',
  None   = 'none',
}

type Column = string;
type Row    = Column[];

interface Table {
  head: Row,
  body: Row[],
}

interface GetTableInput {
  table:         Table,

  alignColumns?: boolean,
  alignment?:    Align[],
}

params.table.head

• table headers
• must be an array of strings
• cannot be empty

Examples

// OK
['header1', 'header2', 'header3']

// Error
undefined
[]

params.table.body

• table body
• must be an array whose elements are arrays of strings
• can be empty

Examples

// OK
['column1', 'column2', 'column3']
[]

// Error
undefined

params.alignColumns

• whether to vertically align columns (|)
• must be boolean or undefined (in which case it will default to true)

Examples

// OK
true
false
undefined

// Error
'yes'
1

alignColumns on/off

import { Align, Table, getMarkdownTable } from 'markdown-table-ts';

const myTable: Table = {
  head: ['first header', 'second header', 'very very very long header'],
  body: [
    ['1',                      'John',  '26'],
    ['very very very long id', 'Bob',   '25'],
    ['3',                      'Alice', '23'],
  ],
};

const myAlignment: Align[] = [Align.Center, Align.None, Align.Right];

console.log(getMarkdownTable({
  table: myTable,
  alignment: myAlignment,

  alignColumns: true,
}));

console.log(getMarkdownTable({
  table: myTable,
  alignment: myAlignment,

  alignColumns: false,
}));

// alignColumns on
// |      first header      | second header | very very very long header |
// | :--------------------: | ------------- | -------------------------: |
// |           1            | John          |                         26 |
// | very very very long id | Bob           |                         25 |
// |           3            | Alice         |                         23 |

// alignColumns off
// | first header | second header | very very very long header |
// | :-: | --- | --: |
// | 1 | John | 26 |
// | very very very long id | Bob | 25 |
// | 3 | Alice | 23 |

params.alignment

• defines how to align each of the columns
• must be an array of Align which is one of
  • Align.Left (:----)
  • Align.Right (----:)
  • Align.Center (:---:)
  • Align.None (-----)
• defaults to Align.None

Examples

// OK
[Align.Left, Align.Right, Align.Center, Align.None]

// Not recommended but this will also pass if you turn off type checking
['left', 'right', 'center', 'none']

// Error
[Align.left, 1, 'hello']

Edge cases

Some rows have more columns than others

When some of the rows (table head included) have more columns than others, the resulting table will have as many columns as the row with the most columns. Undefined columns will be empty.

import { getMarkdownTable } from 'markdown-table-ts';

const table = getMarkdownTable({
  table: {
    head: ['ID', 'Name', 'Age'],
    body: [
      ['1', 'John',  '26', 'more data', 'even more data'],
      ['2', 'Bob',   '25'],
      ['3', 'Alice', '23', 'extra column'],
    ],
  },
});

console.log(table);

// Output:
// | ID  | Name  | Age |              |                |
// | --- | ----- | --- | ------------ | -------------- |
// | 1   | John  | 26  | more data    | even more data |
// | 2   | Bob   | 25  |              |                |
// | 3   | Alice | 23  | extra column |                |

Length of alignment array is less than amount of columns in the table

When there are less elements in the params.alignment array than there are columns in the resulting table, getMarkdownTable will still succeed and columns with undefined alignment will default to Align.None (-----), e.g. when there are 4 columns in the table and the length of params.alignment is 2, the first 2 columns will use alignment from params.alignment and the rest of the columns will default to Align.None (-----).

import { Align, getMarkdownTable } from 'markdown-table-ts';

const table = getMarkdownTable({
  table: {
    head: ['ID', 'Name', 'Age', 'Country'],
    body: [
      ['1', 'John',  '26', 'Czechia'],
      ['2', 'Bob',   '25', 'United States'],
      ['3', 'Alice', '23', 'Denmark'],
    ],
  },
  alignment: [Align.Center, Align.Left],
});

console.log(table);

// Output:
// | ID  | Name  | Age | Country       |
// | :-: | :---- | --- | ------------- |
// |  1  | John  | 26  | Czechia       |
// |  2  | Bob   | 25  | United States |
// |  3  | Alice | 23  | Denmark       |