The table Printer class has no dependencies and generates an array out of an object array

TablePrinter.php

<?php

/**
 * The table Printer class has no dependencies and generates an array (strings)
 * out of an object array / countable and the child properties that should be printed given by an array (strings)
 */
class TablePrinter
{
    /**
     * @param \Countable|array|object[] $historyItems
     * @param array|string[] $columns
     * @return array|string[]
     */
    public function printLinesIntoArray($historyItems, $columns): array
    {
        $lines = [];
        $columnSizes = $this->calculateColumnSizes($columns, $historyItems);
        $separator = $this->buildSeparator($columns, $columnSizes);
        $lines[] = $separator;
        $lines[] = $this->buildHeaderLine($columns, $columnSizes);
        $lines[] = $separator;
        foreach ($historyItems as $item) {
            $lines[] = $this->buildContentLineWithItem($columns, $columnSizes, $item);
        }
        $lines[] = $separator;
        return $lines;
    }

    /**
     * @param array $columns
     * @param \Countable|array|object[] $historyItems
     * @return array
     */
    private function calculateColumnSizes(array $columns, $historyItems): array
    {
        $columnSizes = [];
        $curCol = 0;
        foreach ($columns as $column) {
            $columnSizes[] = strlen($column);
            $curCol++;
        }
        foreach ($historyItems as $item) {
            $curCol = 0;
            foreach ($columns as $column) {
                /** @noinspection PhpVariableVariableInspection */
                $columnSizes[$curCol] = max($columnSizes[$curCol], strlen($item->$column));
                $curCol++;
            }
        }
        return $columnSizes;
    }

    /**
     * @param array $columns
     * @param array $columnSize
     * @return string
     */
    private function buildSeparator(array $columns, array $columnSize): string
    {
        return $this->strRepeat('-',
            count($columns) * 3 + 1 + array_reduce($columnSize, [$this, 'sum'])
        );
    }

    private function strRepeat(string $str, int $count)
    {
        $str2 = '';
        for ($i = $count; $i > 0; $i--) {
            $str2 .= $str;
        }
        return $str2;
    }

    /**
     * @param array $columns
     * @param array $columnSize
     * @return string
     */
    private function buildHeaderLine(array $columns, array $columnSize): string
    {
        return $this->buildContentLineWithItem($columns, $columnSize);
    }

    /**
     * @param array $columns
     * @param array $columnSize
     * @param object $item
     * @return string
     */
    private function buildContentLineWithItem(array $columns, array $columnSize, object $item = null): string
    {
        $data = [];
        $formatString = '';
        $curCol = 0;
        foreach ($columns as $column) {
            $formatString .= '| %' . $columnSize[$curCol] . 's ';
            /** @noinspection PhpVariableVariableInspection */
            $data[] = $item ? $item->$column : $column;
            if ($curCol === sizeof($columns) - 1) {
                $formatString .= '| ';
            }
            $curCol++;
        }
        return sprintf($formatString, ...$data);
    }

    private function sum($a, $b)
    {
        return $a + $b;
    }
}

Thanks for sharing this code, I found it useful! A couple things: Because of lines 46 and 98, $historyItems will not work with arrays. And because of this, the column identifiers cannot have spaces in them. I was looking forward to using something like:

$items[] = [
   'File Name' => 'index.html',
   'Accessed Time' => $stat['atime'],
   'Modified Time' => $stat['mtime],
   'Size' => number_format($stat['size'])
];
// etc..
$output = $tablePrinter->printLinesIntoArray($items, ['Modified Time', 'Accessed Time', 'Size', 'File'], false);

Just something to consider...

@redestructa Thank you so much for sharing this, I found it on a stack thread and it's exactly what I was looking for. Something lightweight and simple to build tables. I'm using it to build and output tables into a little CLI tool.

I've renamed some things to make it easier for me to use as well as made some fairly minor tweaks to how things work so it should address what @pbarney mentioned as well.

I also added a little more customizability to it, such as the ability to color the output, change the character used at column and row intersections, the ability to choose the header and data text justification, and a method to echo the strings.

I've only been testing it so far on my local environment which is running macOS 11.3 with PHP 7.6.16 / PHP 8.0.3

Anyway, here's the updated script

Here's what a sample looks like: