Color is not working in nested tables

[maximiliank]

When I try to put a Table with a colored cell into another Table the color is not working anymore.

Here is an example:

#include "tabulate/tabulate.hpp"
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    using namespace tabulate;

    Table inner;
    inner.add_row({"A"});
    inner[0][0].format().font_color(Color::green);
    std::cout << "Here 'A' is green:\n" << inner << std::endl;

    Table outer;
    outer.add_row({inner});
    std::cout << "Here 'A' is not green:\n" << outer << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

which gives the following output on Ubuntu:

Here 'A' is green:
+---+
| A |
+---+
Here 'A' is not green:
+-------+
| +---+ |
| | A | |
| +---+ |
+-------+

[p-ranav]

Yeah this is a known issue and it has to do with std::stringstream not retaining the termcolor colors.

Essentially, how nested tables are implemented are as follows:

• The inner table is converted to string (using std::stringstream as the stream, instead of std::cout)
  • Relevant source here.
• The outer table cell value is now the inner table string, serialized in the previous step
• The outer table is then fully printed to std::cout

If the inner table colors were preserved in the first step, this would work as we want. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Nested table support was added as sort of an after-thought/bonus feature. I may have to just implement printing of nested tables with iteration (starting from the outer table and going in), which is non-ideal.

[maximiliank]

Thank you for your reply.

I tried to add << termcolor::colorize, see ikalnytskyi/termcolor#20, to the inline void Printer::print_table(std::ostream &stream, TableInternal &table) function. The color works, but the right borders are messed up.
Do you think it could work this way?

[tqolf]

ansi escape sequence should be considered in get_sequence_length to support colorful nested table. I have implemented by myself https://github.com/vxfury/tabulate. and with true color supported, too.

[tqolf]

ansi escape sequence should be considered in get_sequence_length to support colorful nested table. I have implemented by myself https://github.com/vxfury/tabulate. and with true color supported, too.

[p-ranav]

A pull request would be greatly appreciated :)

[791136190]

Is there a support plan for this feature?

[edisonhello]

An easy bypass of this issue is to convert the table to string manually with termcolor::colorize, enable the multibyte char, and then limit the width manually.

[sandmeteor]

@edisonhello can you give code for this 'bypass' ?
@vxfury link https://github.com/vxfury/tabulate is not available - is it a chance to get this piece of code?