--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/numerics/formatting.py	Fri Sep 19 16:47:04 2014 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+"""
+formatting tools for tabular data
+"""
+
+__all__ = ['format_cols', 'format_table']
+
+def format_cols(rows, header=None, right_align=()):
+    if not rows:
+        return []
+    if isinstance(rows[0], dict):
+        header = header or rows[0].keys()
+        rows = [[row[h] for h in header] for row in rows]
+    if header:
+        rows.insert(0, header)
+        rows.insert(1, ['-'*len(i) for i in header])
+    assert len(set([len(row) for row in rows])) == 1
+    rows = [[str(col).strip() for col in row]
+            for row in rows]
+    lengths = [max([len(row[i]) for row in rows])
+               for i in range(len(rows[0]))]
+    rows = [[(' '*(length-len(col)) + col) if index in right_align else (col + ' '*(length-len(col)))
+             for index, (col, length) in enumerate(zip(row, lengths))]
+            for row in rows]
+    return rows
+
+def format_table(rows, header=None, right_align=(), joiner=' '):
+    """format a table for printing"""
+    rows = format_cols(rows, header=header, right_align=right_align)
+    return '\n'.join([joiner.join([str(col) for col in row]).rstrip() for row in rows])