How to make a list of commands and then display it in a table

Question

so I've decided to try to make a nice cmd menu on windows in python, but I got stuck on one of the first things. I want to create a list of commands and then display them in a table.I am using prettytable to create the tables.

So I would like my output to look like this:

+---------+-------------------------------+
| Command |             Usage             |
+---------+-------------------------------+
|   Help  |             /help             |
|   Help2 |            /help 2            |
|   Help3 |            /help 3            |
+---------+-------------------------------+

But I cannot figure out how to create and work with the list. The code currently looks like this

from prettytable import PrettyTable
_cmdTable =  PrettyTable(["Command", "Usage"])

#Here I create the commands
help = ['Help','/help']
help2 = ['Help2','/help2']
help3 = ['Help2','/help3']

#And here I add rows and print it

_cmdTable.add_row([help[0], help[1]])
_cmdTable.add_row([help2[0], help2[1]])
_cmdTable.add_row([help3[0], help3[1]])

print(_cmdTable)

But this is way too much work. I would like to make it easier, but I cannot figure out how. I'd imagine it to look something like this:

from prettytable import PrettyTable
_cmdTable =  PrettyTable(["Command", "Usage"])


commands = {["Help", "/help"], ["Help2", "/help2"], ["Help3", "/help3"]}
for cmd in commands:
    _cmdTable.add_row([cmd])

print(_cmdTable)

I know it's possible, just don't know how. It doesn't have to use the same module for tables, if you know some that's better or fits this request more, use it.

I basically want to make the process easier, not make it manually everytime I add a new command. Hope I explained it clearly. Thanks!

Answer 1

You can have more manual control using string formatting

header = ['Command', 'Usage']
rows = [['Help', '/help'], ['Help2', '/help 2'], ['Help3', '/help 3']]

spacer1 = 10
spacer2 = 20

line = '+' + '-'*spacer1 + '+' + '-'*spacer2 + '+\n'
header = f'| {header[0]:<{spacer1-1}}|{header[1]:^{spacer2}}|\n'

table_rows = ''

for row in rows:
    table_rows += f'| {row[0]:<{spacer1-1}}|{row[1]:^{spacer2}}|\n'
    
print(line + header + line + table_rows + line)

Edit: Added spacing control with variables.

Answer 2

You can't put lists in a set. commands should either be a list of lists, or a set of tuples. Using a list is probably more appropriate in this application, because you may want the table items in a specific order.

You shouldn't put cmd inside another list. Each element of commands is already a list.

commands = [["Help", "/help"], ["Help2", "/help2"], ["Help3", "/help3"]]
for cmd in commands:
    _cmdTable.add_row(cmd)