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Version: Java (Groovy)

formatColumns

The formatColumns method creates a new table containing a new, formula column defining a column format for each argument. It is a special case of updateView that creates columns that hold format information instead of regular data.

Since formatColumns is implemented using updateView, the new columns are not stored in memory, and instead a formula is stored that is used to determine the format for each cell/row when necessary.

Syntax

table.formatColumns(columnFormats...)

Parameters

ParameterTypeDescription
columnFormatsString...

Formulas to compute formats for columns or rows in the table; e.g., "X = Y > 5 ? RED : NO_FORMATTING".

For color formats, the result of each formula must be either a color string (such as a hexadecimal RGB color, e.g. "#040427"), a Color, or a packed long representation of the background and foreground color (as returned by bgfg() or bgfga()).

For decimal formats, the result must be a string, and the formula must be wrapped in the special internal function Decimal(); e.g., "X = Decimal(`$#,##0.00`)".

Returns

A new table that includes all the original columns from the source table and the newly defined format columns. The format columns are identified internally by the query engine by appending a suffix to the column name.

Examples

In the following example, the column A is formatted with a color depending on the value of column B, and column C is specified to display values as a percentage using the decimal format pattern 0.00%.

source = newTable(
stringCol("A", "The", "At", "Is", "On"),
intCol("B", 1, 2, 3, 4),
doubleCol("C", 0.5, 0.66, 0.777, 0.888)
)

result = source.formatColumns(
"A = B > 2 ? BLUE : NO_FORMATTING",
"C = Decimal(`0.00%`)"
)