How to organize columns in vim?

Question

I got some columns that look like this:

9  normal    tri key     __tri_key
26 32     throw ex   __throw_ex
42 normal     row lend     __row_lend
98 normal   race car    __race_car
101 32      math chk      __math_chk     

How can I make them like this (via command of course).

9     normal    tri key     __tri_key
26    32        throw ex    __throw_ex
42    normal    row lend    __row_lend
98    normal    race car    __race_car
101   32        math chk    __math_chk  

Answer 1

I have a function called AlignText that works like if you were using the "column" command. If you pass a separator it will use it as separator, if not it will function like normal column command.

" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57093175/
" https://vi.stackexchange.com/questions/2410/
if !exists('*AlignText')
    function! AlignText(...) range
        if a:0 < 1
            execute a:firstline . ',' . a:lastline . '!column -t'

        else
            execute a:firstline . ',' . a:lastline . '!column -t -s' . a:1 . ' -o' . a:1
        endif
    endfunction
endif
command! -range=% -nargs=? Align <line1>,<line2>call AlignText(<f-args>)

If you select a portion it will work on that if not the whole file will be changed

vip ........................... visual inner paragraph
:'<,'>Align ................... apply change on selected paragraph

You can copy the function and the "command!" to the clipboard and run on vim:

:@+ ....................... will put the function into vim memory
vip ....................... select your block of text
:'<,'>Align ............... voila, text aligned

The actual "column" command can be used this way:

vip ....................... select the paragraph
:'<,'>!column -t 

Answer 2

For alignment, there are three well-known plugins:

• the venerable Align - Help folks to align text, eqns, declarations, tables, etc
• the modern tabular
• the contender vim-easy-align