5 min example (similar to ConsoleTable library's example) about csconsoleformat

[Athari]

@nikoudel The "simple fully working and copy-pastable example to start with, right on the front page" exists exactly there under the title "C# (like LINQ to XML)". Yes, it includes setting colors, alignment and borders, but you can just remove what you don't need. In your case, the code would look like this:

var colors = new[] {
    new { Name = "Blue", Code = "#0000FF" },
    new { Name = "Yellow", Code = "#FFFF00" },
    new { Name = "Cyan", Code = "#00FFFF" },
};
var doc = new Document(
    "HTML Colors",
    new Grid {
        Columns = { -1, -1 }, // -1 means GridLength.Auto - size column to content
        Children = {
            new Cell("Name"),
            new Cell("Code"),
            colors.Select(c => new [] {
                new Cell(c.Name),
                new Cell(c.Code),
            })
        }
    }
);
ConsoleRenderer.RenderDocument(doc);

This code would produce this output:

HTML Colors
╔══════╤═══════╗
║Name  │Code   ║
╟──────┼───────╢
║Blue  │#0000FF║
╟──────┼───────╢
║Yellow│#FFFF00║
╟──────┼───────╢
║Cyan  │#00FFFF║
╚══════╧═══════╝

It's more verbose than ConsoleTable library, but it's impossible to construct facades that would work for every case as there're too many options, so everyone would need something different. Normally, if you want many tables with various formatting in your console application, the best approach is probably to separate views from models, like it's done in GUI apps. So you would have a method like this:

public static Document RenderHtmlColors((string name, string code)[] colors) => new Document(
    "HTML Colors",
    new Grid {
        Columns = { -1, -1 },
        Children = {
            new Cell("Name"),
            new Cell("Code"),
            colors.Select(c => new[] {
                new Cell(c.name),
                new Cell(c.code),
            })
        }
    }
);

and would call it from the main code:

var colors = new[] {
    (name: "Blue", code: "#0000FF"),
    (name: "Yellow", code: "#FFFF00"),
    (name: "Cyan", code: "#00FFFF"),
};
ConsoleRenderer.RenderDocument(RenderHtmlColors(colors));

Alternatively, you can write a facade which outputs the tables you want with less code. A starting point would look like this:

public class ConsoleTable
{
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable<string> ColumnNames { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable<string> Cells { get; set; }

    public void Render()
    {
        var doc = new Document(
            Title,
            new Grid {
                Columns = { ColumnNames.Select(c => -1) },
                Children = {
                    ColumnNames.Select(c => new Cell(c)),
                    Cells.Select(c => new Cell(c)),
                }
            }
        );
        ConsoleRenderer.RenderDocument(doc);
    }
}

You can then use it like this:

var table = new ConsoleTable {
    Title = "HTML Colors",
    ColumnNames = new[] { "Name", "Code" },
    Cells = colors.SelectMany(c => new[] { c.name, c.code }).ToList()
};
table.Render();

(If you're confused by what happens with IEnumerable inside IEnumerable and how it works, please check out System.Xml.Linq documentation as the logic of collapsing enumerables is the same as in LINQ to XML.)

Even something as trivial as this is superior to ConsoleTable library already, for example, it properly handles multi-line cells.

You can easily expand this code to suit your needs. For example, instead of specifying column headers and and cell contens explicitly, you can use expressions and reflection. Overall, you write the facades that you need and then use them.

P.S. I understand that the library may look too complicated, as it burrows concepts from unrelated technologies (WPF, HTML, LINQ to XML), but I hope this clears up things a bit. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

[nikoudel]

I get it now, thank you!

It was just missing a bit of context (the Order.OrderItems thing). Now it seems obvious when I have the whole model in mind but the first sight was a bit confusing.