How to output a simple ascii table in PHP?

Question

I have some data like:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [a] => largeeeerrrrr
            [b] => 0
            [c] => 47
            [d] => 0
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [a] => bla
            [b] => 1
            [c] => 0
            [d] => 0
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [a] => bla3
            [b] => 0
            [c] => 0
            [d] => 0
        )

)

And I want to produce an output like:

title1        | title2 | title3 | title4
largeeeerrrrr | 0      | 47     | 0
bla           | 1      | 0      | 0
bla3          | 0      | 0      | 0

Which is the simples way to achieve this in PHP? I'd like to avoid using a library for such simple task.

Answer 1

use printf

$i=0;
foreach( $itemlist as $items)
{
 foreach ($items as $key => $value)
 {
   if ($i++==0) // print header
   {
     printf("[%010s]|",   $key );
     echo "\n";
   }
   printf("[%010s]|",   $value);
 }
 echo "\n"; // don't forget the newline at the end of the row!
}

This uses 10 padding spaces. As BoltClock says, you probably want to check the length of the longest string first or your table will be jacked up on long strings.