4.1.2.10 Text

Writes tables in a simple text-based format designed to be read by humans. No reader exists for this format.

The handler behaviour may be modified by specifying one or more comma-separated name=value configuration options in parentheses after the handler name, e.g. "text(maxCell=40,maxParam=160)". The following options are available:

maxCell = <int>

Maximum width in characters of an output table cell. Cells longer than this will be truncated.

maxParam = <int>

Maximum width in characters of an output table parameter. Parameters with values longer than this will be truncated.

params = true|false

Whether to output table parameters as well as row data.

sampledRows = <int>

The number of rows examined on a first pass of the table to determine the width of each column. Only a representative number of rows needs to be examined, but if a formatted cell value after this limit is wider than the cells up to it, then such later wide cells may get truncated. If the value is <=0, all rows are examined in the first pass; this is the default, but it can be configured to some other value if that takes too long.

Multiple tables may be written to a single output file using this format.

An example looks like this:

Table name: animals.vot
Description: Some animals
Author: Mark Taylor
+-------+-----------+---------------+------+--------+--------+
| RECNO | SPECIES   | NAME          | LEGS | HEIGHT | MAMMAL |
+-------+-----------+---------------+------+--------+--------+
| 1     | pig       | Pigling Bland | 4    | 0.8    | true   |
| 2     | cow       | Daisy         | 4    | 2.0    | true   |
| 3     | goldfish  | Dobbin        |      | 0.05   | false  |
| 4     | ant       |               | 6    | 0.001  | false  |
| 5     | ant       |               | 6    | 0.001  | false  |
| 6     | queen ant | Ma'am         | 6    | 0.002  | false  |
| 7     | human     | Mark          | 2    | 1.8    | true   |
+-------+-----------+---------------+------+--------+--------+