use at least 2 spaces as separator in the tabular outputs

[goyalyashpal]

hi!

description

does powershell allows to increase the space separation in different columns to at least 2?

'cz the current single space separated columns:

• make it super ambiguous, and ...
• impossible to parse with multi-word column headers (like in scoop status)
• i.e. unusable for structured operations in nushell, awk etc.

prelude

$ scoop status | tail -n+2 > sst.txt

sst.txt:

Name       Installed Version Latest Version Missing Dependencies Info
----       ----------------- -------------- -------------------- ----
autohotkey 2.0.11            2.0.12                                  
meld       3.22.1            3.22.2                                  
obs-studio 30.1              30.1.1                                  
yq         4.42.1            4.43.1                                  

testing commands

$ cat sst.txt
$ cat sst.txt | nu --stdin -c "from ssv --aligned-columns"
$ cat sst.txt | nu --stdin -c "from ssv --aligned-columns --minimum-spaces 1"
$ cat sst.txt | awk '{print $2, $4}'
$ cat sst.txt | awk -F ' {2,}' '{print $2, $4}'

equivalent to: nu -c "scoop status | ..." or scoop status | nu --stdin -c "..."

actual behaviour

• with minimum 1 space, it is infeasibly difficult to parse

$ # Notice headers here: "Installed" "Latest"
$ # Whereas it'd've been: "Installed Version" "Missing Depen..."

$ # Equivalent to awk -F ' {1,}' I guess?
$ # Output similar as --minumum-spaces 2 with -F ' {2,}`
$ cat sst.txt | awk '{print $2, $4}' 

Installed Latest
----------------- --------------------
2.0.11
3.22.1
30.1
4.42.1

$ nu -c "cat sst.txt | from ssv --aligned-columns --minimum-spaces 1"
╭───┬────────────┬────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬──────────────┬──────╮
│ # │    Name    │ Installed  │ Version │ Latest  │ Missing  │ Dependencies │ Info │
├───┼────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────────┼──────┤
│ 0 │ ----       │ ---------- │ ------- │ ------- │ -------- │ ------------ │ ---- │
│ 1 │ autohotkey │ 2.0.11     │         │ 2.0.12  │          │              │      │
│ 2 │ meld       │ 3.22.1     │         │ 3.22.2  │          │              │      │
│ 3 │ obs-studio │ 30.1       │         │ 30.1.1  │          │              │      │
│ 4 │ yq         │ 4.42.1     │         │ 4.43.1  │          │              │      │
╰───┴────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴──────────────┴──────╯

$ nu -c "cat sst.txt | from ssv --aligned-columns"    # "--minimum-spaces 2" is default
╭───┬────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ # │    Name    │ Installed Version Latest Version Missing Dependencies Info │
├───┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 0 │ ----       │ ----------------- -------------- -------------------- ---- │
│ 1 │ autohotkey │ 2.0.11            2.0.12                                   │
│ 2 │ meld       │ 3.22.1            3.22.2                                   │
│ 3 │ obs-studio │ 30.1              30.1.1                                   │
│ 4 │ yq         │ 4.42.1            4.43.1                                   │
╰───┴────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

expected behaviour

the output is easy to parse.

• with min 2 spaces as col-separator, it becomes trivial
• awk -F ' +' i.e. awk -F ' {2,}' or nu -c 'from ssv # -am 2'

with 2 col-separator spaces:

Name        Installed Version  Latest Version  Missing Dependencies  Info
----        -----------------  --------------  --------------------  ----
autohotkey  2.0.11             2.0.12                                  
meld        3.22.1             3.22.2                                  
obs-studio  30.1               30.1.1                                  
yq          4.42.1             4.43.1                                  

$ cat sst.txt | awk -F ' {2,}' '{print $2 "\t" $3 "\t" $1}'

Installed Version       Latest Version  Name
-----------------       --------------  ----
2.0.11  2.0.12  autohotkey
3.22.1  3.22.2  meld
30.1    30.1.1  obs-studio
4.42.1  4.43.1  yq

$ nu -c "cat sst.txt | from ssv"
╭───┬────────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────────────────┬──────╮
│ # │    Name    │ Installed Version │ Latest Version │ Missing Dependencies │ Info │
├───┼────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────┼──────┤
│ 0 │ ----       │ ----------------- │ -------------- │ -------------------- │ ---- │
│ 1 │ autohotkey │ 2.0.11            │ 2.0.12         │                   ❎ │   ❎ │
│ 2 │ meld       │ 3.22.1            │ 3.22.2         │                   ❎ │   ❎ │
│ 3 │ obs-studio │ 30.1              │ 30.1.1         │                   ❎ │   ❎ │
│ 4 │ yq         │ 4.42.1            │ 4.43.1         │                   ❎ │   ❎ │
╰───┴────────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────╯

$ nu -c "cat sst.txt | from ssv --aligned-columns"
╭───┬────────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────────────────┬──────╮
│ # │    Name    │ Installed Version │ Latest Version │ Missing Dependencies │ Info │
├───┼────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────┼──────┤
│ 0 │ ----       │ ----------------- │ -------------- │ -------------------- │ ---- │
│ 1 │ autohotkey │ 2.0.11            │ 2.0.12         │                      │      │
│ 2 │ meld       │ 3.22.1            │ 3.22.2         │                      │      │
│ 3 │ obs-studio │ 30.1              │ 30.1.1         │                      │      │
│ 4 │ yq         │ 4.42.1            │ 4.43.1         │                      │      │
╰───┴────────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────╯

environment

for the sed -n expressions here, refer: baeldung's split-file#using-sed

$ scoop -V | head -n2
Current Scoop version:
v0.3.1 - Released at 2022-11-15

$ nu -v
0.91.0

$ systeminfo | grep -iA1 "os name"
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 10 Home Single Language
OS Version:                10.0.19045 N/A Build 19045

$ powershell -Command '& {$Host}' | sed -n '3,4p; 5q'
Name             : ConsoleHost
Version          : 5.1.19041.4046

[goyalyashpal]

follow upstream issue request at:

• Allow to specify 2 spaces as column separator for tabular output PowerShell/PowerShell#21370

[niheaven]

Yes, I couldn't find a param to change the spaces...

[goyalyashpal]

hi @ niheaven . upstream ain't cooperating. so, i am closing this issue from my side.
thanks for trying 😃

[goyalyashpal]

for the time being, as insisted here to use powershell output/to cmdlets, so, the command becomes:

$ echo "scoop status | convertto-csv" | powershell -C - | ...

$ # Or, if the person knows powershell
$ # but want to stay in, say bash (for consolidated history, or whatever reason), then:
$ echo "scoop status | ..." | powershell -C -

where ... is:

• [in first:] any structured querying (on csv) using external tool, or
• [in second:] direct manipulation on scoop data using powershell cmdlets

note though:

shell	direct run in other shell	pipe command text	pipe command data
nu	nu -c '...'	xx	... | nu --stdin -c '...'
powershell	powershell -C '& {...}'	echo '...' | powershell -C -	xx