Of course I still use Perl

Our application has a command-line API interface for convenient access via shell/console. It used to output API result data in YAML:

# /c/sbin/spanel api --yaml File list --account steven --volume data --dir /public
--- 
dir: 
  atime: '1270675429'
  ctime: '1285916065'
  gid: 1023
  group: steven
  is_dir: 1
  mtime: '1285916065'
  perms: 493
  uid: 1012
  url: ~
  user: steven
entries: 
  - 
    atime: '1284665000'
    ctime: '1289609859'
    dir: /public
    gid: 1023
    group: steven
    icon_file: folder.gif
    inode: 1984908
    is_dir: 1
    is_link: 0
    mtime: '1289609859'
    name: git
    perms: 493
    reldir: ''
    size: 4096
    uid: 1012
    url: ~
    user: steven
  - 
    atime: '1270675424'
    ctime: '1285130140'
    dir: /public
    gid: 1023
    group: steven
    icon_file: text.gif
    inode: 1976727
    is_dir: 0
    is_link: 0
    mtime: '1155368486'
    name: .htaccess
    perms: 436
    reldir: ''
    size: 48
    uid: 1012
    url: ~
    user: steven
  - 
    atime: '1270675424'
    ctime: '1285130140'
    dir: /public
    gid: 1023
    group: steven
    icon_file: unknown.gif
    inode: 1976725
    is_dir: 0
    is_link: 0
    mtime: '1155368397'
    name: .htaccess~
    perms: 436
    reldir: ''
    size: 63
    uid: 1012
    url: ~
    user: steven
total_num_entries: 3
url: ~

YAML is relatively readable if you compare to JSON or (shudder) XML, but I soon grew tired of reading YAML for data that should be tabulated and better formatted for human consumption.

Thus, Data::Format::Pretty::Console. The idea is for me, a lazy programmer, to throw it data structure of various kind and it will display it nicely suitable for console viewing. The command line API interface now by default shows nicely formatted text for API result data (but still provides --yaml and --json option). Please bear with this blog post's misformatting and assume it's all pretty:

dir:
.---------------------.
| key    | value      |
+--------+------------+
| atime  | 1270675429 |
| ctime  | 1285916065 |
| gid    |       1023 |
| group  | steven     |
| is_dir |          1 |
| mtime  | 1285916065 |
| perms  |        493 |
| uid    |       1012 |
| url    |            |
| user   | steven     |
'--------+------------'

entries:
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| atime      | ctime      | dir     | gid  | group  | icon_file   | inode   | is_dir | is_link | mtime      | name       | perms | reldir | size | uid  | url | user   |
+------------+------------+---------+------+--------+-------------+---------+--------+---------+------------+------------+-------+--------+------+------+-----+--------+
| 1284665000 | 1289609859 | /public | 1023 | steven | folder.gif  | 1984908 |      1 |       0 | 1289609859 | git        |   493 |        | 4096 | 1012 |     | steven |
| 1270675424 | 1285130140 | /public | 1023 | steven | text.gif    | 1976727 |      0 |       0 | 1155368486 | .htaccess  |   436 |        |   48 | 1012 |     | steven |
| 1270675424 | 1285130140 | /public | 1023 | steven | unknown.gif | 1976725 |      0 |       0 | 1155368397 | .htaccess~ |   436 |        |   63 | 1012 |     | steven |
'------------+------------+---------+------+--------+-------------+---------+--------+---------+------------+------------+-------+--------+------+------+-----+--------'

total_num_entries:
3

url: