How can I align the columns of tables in Bash?

Use the column command:

column -t -s' ' filename

printf is great, but people forget about it.

$ for num in 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000; do printf "%10s %s\n" $num "foobar"; done         1 foobar        10 foobar       100 foobar      1000 foobar     10000 foobar    100000 foobar   1000000 foobar$ for((i=0;i<array_size;i++));do    printf "%10s %10d %10s" stringarray[$i] numberarray[$i] anotherfieldarray[%i]done

Notice I used %10s for strings. %s is the important part. It tells it to use a string. The 10 in the middle says how many columns it is to be. %d is for numerics (digits).

man 1 printf for more info.

function printTable(){    local -r delimiter="${1}"    local -r data="$(removeEmptyLines "${2}")"    if [[ "${delimiter}" != '' && "$(isEmptyString "${data}")" = 'false' ]]    then        local -r numberOfLines="$(wc -l <<< "${data}")"        if [[ "${numberOfLines}" -gt '0' ]]        then            local table=''            local i=1            for ((i = 1; i <= "${numberOfLines}"; i = i + 1))            do                local line=''                line="$(sed "${i}q;d" <<< "${data}")"                local numberOfColumns='0'                numberOfColumns="$(awk -F "${delimiter}" '{print NF}' <<< "${line}")"                # Add Line Delimiter                if [[ "${i}" -eq '1' ]]                then                    table="${table}$(printf '%s#+' "$(repeatString '#+' "${numberOfColumns}")")"                fi                # Add Header Or Body                table="${table}\n"                local j=1                for ((j = 1; j <= "${numberOfColumns}"; j = j + 1))                do                    table="${table}$(printf '#| %s' "$(cut -d "${delimiter}" -f "${j}" <<< "${line}")")"                done                table="${table}#|\n"                # Add Line Delimiter                if [[ "${i}" -eq '1' ]] || [[ "${numberOfLines}" -gt '1' && "${i}" -eq "${numberOfLines}" ]]                then                    table="${table}$(printf '%s#+' "$(repeatString '#+' "${numberOfColumns}")")"                fi            done            if [[ "$(isEmptyString "${table}")" = 'false' ]]            then                echo -e "${table}" | column -s '#' -t | awk '/^\+/{gsub(" ", "-", $0)}1'            fi        fi    fi}function removeEmptyLines(){    local -r content="${1}"    echo -e "${content}" | sed '/^\s*$/d'}function repeatString(){    local -r string="${1}"    local -r numberToRepeat="${2}"    if [[ "${string}" != '' && "${numberToRepeat}" =~ ^[1-9][0-9]*$ ]]    then        local -r result="$(printf "%${numberToRepeat}s")"        echo -e "${result// /${string}}"    fi}function isEmptyString(){    local -r string="${1}"    if [[ "$(trimString "${string}")" = '' ]]    then        echo 'true' && return 0    fi    echo 'false' && return 1}function trimString(){    local -r string="${1}"    sed 's,^[[:blank:]]*,,' <<< "${string}" | sed 's,[[:blank:]]*$,,'}

SAMPLE RUNS

$ cat data-1.txtHEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-1.txt)"+-----------+-----------+-----------+| HEADER 1  | HEADER 2  | HEADER 3  |+-----------+-----------+-----------+$ cat data-2.txtHEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3data 1,data 2,data 3$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-2.txt)"+-----------+-----------+-----------+| HEADER 1  | HEADER 2  | HEADER 3  |+-----------+-----------+-----------+| data 1    | data 2    | data 3    |+-----------+-----------+-----------+$ cat data-3.txtHEADER 1,HEADER 2,HEADER 3data 1,data 2,data 3data 4,data 5,data 6$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-3.txt)"+-----------+-----------+-----------+| HEADER 1  | HEADER 2  | HEADER 3  |+-----------+-----------+-----------+| data 1    | data 2    | data 3    || data 4    | data 5    | data 6    |+-----------+-----------+-----------+$ cat data-4.txtHEADERdata$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-4.txt)"+---------+| HEADER  |+---------+| data    |+---------+$ cat data-5.txtHEADERdata 1data 2$ printTable ',' "$(cat data-5.txt)"+---------+| HEADER  |+---------+| data 1  || data 2  |+---------+

REF LIB at: https://github.com/gdbtek/linux-cookbooks/blob/master/libraries/util.bash