Skip to content

Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

pillar 1.11.1

Features

  • glimpse() also works for stingy duckplyr data frames.

pillar 1.11.0

CRAN release: 2025-07-04

Bug fixes

  • Fix formatting of numbers of the form 9.99…995 (#785, tidyverse/tibble#1648).

Features

  • Checking sigfig argument to be 15 or less (#788).

Chore

  • Refactor and comment formatting routine (#786).

Testing

  • Fix dev ggplot2 compatibility.

pillar 1.10.2

CRAN release: 2025-04-05

Bug fixes

Features

Chore

  • Compatibility with upcoming ggplot2 (@teunbrand, tidyverse/ggplot2#6361, #729).

Documentation

pillar 1.10.1

CRAN release: 2025-01-07

Documentation

  • Define type_sum.accel() only in help page to avoid silent errors when loading (#720, #721).

pillar 1.10.0

CRAN release: 2024-12-17

Features

Breaking changes

  • Breaking change: Hard-deprecate ellipsis for printing and formatting (#585, #637).

Bug fixes

Documentation

  • Describe getOption("width") (#671, #708).

  • Update _pkgdown.yml to bring back search bar (@olivroy, #667).

  • Avoid displaying deprecated argument in @inheritDotParams (@olivroy, #657).

pillar 1.9.0

CRAN release: 2023-03-22

Features

  • Math operations on num() objects no longer perform type checks. This allows, e.g., multiplying a num() with a logical (#630, #632).

Printing

  • The default for the pillar.min_title_chars option has been bumped up to 20 characters so that title truncuation only affects very long variables. Use options(pillar.min_title_chars = 5) to reset to the previous default (#582, #620).

  • Use info bullets to format details (#582, #617, #627, #635).

Breaking changes

Bug fixes

  • Show colnames() hint only when needed (tidyverse/tibble#1488, #622).

  • Fix printing of very small numbers (#615, #619).

  • Shortened list columns are also shown with a subtle style (#628, #634).

  • Avoid warning with S4 character classes (tidyverse/tibble#1367, #625).

  • Fix method consistency, checked by R-devel (#633).

Documentation

Internal

  • Require vctrs >= 0.5.0

pillar 1.8.1

CRAN release: 2022-08-19

Features

  • New pillar.advice option to turn off advice in the footer, see ?pillar_options. Now off by default in non-interactive mode (#577).

pillar 1.8.0

CRAN release: 2022-07-18

Display

  • Column names that are abbreviated in the header gain a footnote and are printed in full in the footer (#483), after the extra columns (#548). If a column name in the header is abbreviated, all backticks are removed (#525). The new "pillar.superdigit_sep" option that determines the string used to separate footnote from column name in the footer (#553).

  • The default value of the pillar.min_title_width option is changed to 5. This means that effectively the width of a pillar is decided only by the data. Use options(pillar.min_title_width = 15) to restore the previous default, see also ?pillar_options for details (#531).

  • Offer advice in the footer on how to print all columns or rows (#567).

  • Avoid aligning NA inside quotes for very short character vectors (#562).

Features

Bug fixes

  • Fix printing of Surv and Surv2 objects (#561).

  • Fix wording for corner case max_extra_cols = 1 (#535).

  • Remove excess underlines for bit64::integer64() data of different magnitude (#517, #529).

Documentation

Chore

  • Drop crayon dependency (#559).

  • Import ellipsis from rlang (#554).

  • Skip test that requires lubridate if it’s not installed (#505, @MichaelChirico).

API

pillar 1.7.0

CRAN release: 2022-02-01

Breaking changes

Features

  • Focus columns specified via the focus argument to tbl_format_setup() are kept in their original place and shown with the maximum width and with the “type” component underlined (#465).

Bug fixes

  • Update s3_register() to use new implementation from rlang, this fixes CRAN checks related to scale_type() (#462).

Internal

  • Single pillars constructed with pillar() use only as much width as required when printing (#484).

pillar 1.6.5

CRAN release: 2022-01-25

Breaking changes

Features

  • If some but not all sub-columns of a data frame or matrix column are shown, the names and types of the remaining columns are displayed in the footer (#365, #444).
  • num(fixed_exponent = ...) is now represented with the fixed exponent in the pillar header, and in the title in ggplot2 (#307).
  • tbl_format_setup() gains focus argument that expects a character vector of column names. Focus columns are moved to the front and separated from the main columns by a subtle vertical line (#384).
  • New scale_x_num() and scale_y_num(). If a column created with num() is used in a ggplot, the x and y scale will be formatted automatically according to to the specification (#400, #404).
  • List columns omit size information if horizontal space is insufficient (#392).
  • If the column title of a backticked column is abbreviated, the trailing backtick is still printed (#391).
  • new_pillar_shaft_simple() gains short_formatted argument that contains the data to be used if horizontal space is insufficient (#389).
  • Default obj_sum() method returns abbreviation in attribute of return value (#390).

Bug fixes

  • Extra columns in footer show backticks again if they are non-syntactic (#393).
  • Fixed some cases for combinations of printed width and getOption("width") (#432).
  • Fix support for nanotime::nanotime() classes (#378, #380).

Documentation

Internal

  • Use eager registration via NAMESPACE for own methods for classes from other packages.
  • Reworked formatting routine, now using a visitor-based approach with in-order iteration over all pillars. The only visible changes are that usage of free space (in the case of limited space) has slightly improved (#435).
  • Prepared removal of dependency on the crayon package (#233, #406).
  • Use snapshot variants, requires testthat >= 3.1.1 (#387).
  • Replace internal "pillar_vertical" class with glue::as_glue() (#279).

pillar 1.6.4

CRAN release: 2021-10-18

Bug fixes

  • Fix printing for some tibbles where a fixed-width column is followed by a column with variable width (#366).
  • Avoid nested backtick blocks in vignette.

Breaking changes

  • num() requires an integerish digits argument (#362).

Documentation

  • Link to tibble vignettes and documentation pages.

pillar 1.6.3

CRAN release: 2021-09-26

  • Avoid blanket import for lifecycle package for compatibility with upcoming rlang (#368, @romainfrancois).

pillar 1.6.2

CRAN release: 2021-07-29

Options

  • Options pillar.print_max, pillar.print_min, pillar.width and pillar.max_extra_cols are now queried before the corresponding tibble. or dplyr. options are consulted, the latter will be soft-deprecated in pillar v2.0.0 (#353).
  • New pillar.bidi option. When active, control characters are inserted to improve display of data with right-to-left text (#333).
  • The new pillar.max_footer_lines option (default: 7) allows controlling the maximum number of footer lines shown. It is applied in addition to the existing tibble.max_extra_cols option (#263).

Formatting

  • If a column doesn’t make use of all horizontal width offered to it, the excess width is distributed over other columns (#331).
  • Improved allocation of free space in multi-tier tables with getOption("tibble.width") > getOption("width") (#344).
  • All pillars are shown with their true horizontal extent, irrespective of the indicated width. This simplifies the implementation of custom pillar_shaft() methods (#347).

Features

  • num() gains extra_sigfig argument to automatically show more significant figures for numbers of the same magnitude with subtle differences (#97).
  • print.tbl() and format.tbl() support the max_extra_cols and max_footer_lines arguments that override the corresponding options (#360).
  • print.tbl() and format.tbl() maps the now deprecated n_extra argument to max_extra_cols for consistency (#360).

Bug fixes

Documentation

Internal

  • Using attr(exact = TRUE) everywhere.
  • is_vector_s3() is no longer generic (#181).
  • Fix internal logic around vec_proxy() and vec_restore() (#316).

pillar 1.6.1

CRAN release: 2021-05-16

  • Bump required versions of ellipsis and vctrs to avoid warning during package load.
  • obj_sum() no longer includes shape twice (#315).

pillar 1.6.0

CRAN release: 2021-04-13

Features

  • New num() and char() offer a flexible way to customize the display of numeric and character columns (#191, #84).
  • New "pillar.max_dec_width" option (#308).
  • New format_type_sum.AsIs() avoids the need to implement your own format_type_sum() method (#286).
  • align() gains space argument to control the character used for filling (#285).
  • Numbers in scientific and decimal notation are formatted with the same rules regarding significant or decimal digits (#297).

Bug fixes

  • Load the debugme package only if the DEBUGME environment variable is set.
  • More accurate detection if the decimal dot is necessary, and how many digits to show after the decimal dot (#298).
  • Use display width instead of number of characters when truncating character columns.

Documentation

Internal

  • Compatibility with vctrs 0.3.7 (#291).
  • format.pillar_shaft_simple() requires "na" attribute and no longer defaults to pillar_na() (#273).

pillar 1.5.1

CRAN release: 2021-03-05

Features

Bug fixes

  • Color and formatting can now be reliably turned off by setting the "cli.num_colors" option to 1 (#269).

Documentation

  • Add examples for new functions (#264).
  • Fix lifecycle badges everywhere.

pillar 1.5.0

CRAN release: 2021-02-22

Breaking changes

  • obj_sum() now always returns a string. pillar_shaft.list() iterates over its elements and calls obj_sum() for each (#137).

  • Breaking: print.pillar() and print.pillar_ornament() now show <pillar> <pillar_ornament> in the first line (#227, #228).

  • pillar has been re-licensed as MIT (#215).

Extensibility

Formatting

  • All printing code has been moved from tibble to pillar (#179), including glimpse() (#234). This concentrates the printing code in one package and allows for better extensibility.

  • New experimental generics tbl_format_setup(), tbl_format_header(), tbl_format_body() and tbl_format_footer() (#179).

  • Move definition of tbl_sum() to this package (#179).

  • Improve formatting for "Surv" and "Surv2" classes from the survival package (#199).

  • Vectors of the vctrs_unspecified() class are formatted better (#256).

  • Arrays are now formatted by showing only their first slice (#142).

  • Avoid wrapping extra column names with spaces (#254).

Internal

pillar 1.4.7

CRAN release: 2020-11-20

  • Adapt to changed environment on CRAN’s Solaris machine.

pillar 1.4.6

CRAN release: 2020-07-10

  • Restore compatibility with R 3.2.

pillar 1.4.5

CRAN release: 2020-07-09

Features

  • New pillar.min_chars option allows controlling the minimum number of characters shown for a character column (#178, @statsmaths).

  • bit64::integer64() columns are now formatted the same way as numeric columns (#175).

  • New align() to support easy alignment of strings within a character vector (existing function exported by @davidchall, #185).

Technical

Internal

  • Use lifecycle package.

  • Remove compatibility code for R < 3.3.

pillar 1.4.4

CRAN release: 2020-05-05

pillar 1.4.3

CRAN release: 2019-12-20

  • new_pillar_shaft_simple() gains na argument to control appearance of NA values.

  • String columns are quoted if at least one value needs quotes (#171).

  • Apply subtle style to list_of columns (#172).

  • Fix formatting if mantissa is very close to 1 (#174).

  • Use as.character() instead of as_character().

  • Remove compatibility with testthat < 2.0.0.

pillar 1.4.2

CRAN release: 2019-06-29

  • List columns are shown with their perceived dimensions, which may be different from those stored in the "dim" attribute. Regression introduced in 1.4.0 (#167).

  • Add ellipsis to vec_ptype_abbr() method.

pillar 1.4.1

CRAN release: 2019-05-28

  • More careful specification of minimum package versions for the dependencies (#165).
  • Fix type_sum.vctrs_vctr() that also led to a NOTE in R CMD check.
  • Resolve vec_is() at runtime instead of during .onLoad() (#163, @lionel-).
  • Implement methods for vctrs objects.

pillar 1.4.0

CRAN release: 2019-05-11

Breaking changes

  • type_sum() forwards to vctrs::vec_ptype_abbr() (#134). This makes sure that list_of columns (for values of the same type) are properly displayed. The value returned for factor and complex remains unchanged, because this will change in vctrs.
  • The class argument to new_pillar_shaft() deprecates the existing subclass argument. Passing a subclass argument leads to a warning once per session (#157).

Output

  • Removed extra space for pillars with a negative value of lower magnitude than the largest positive value (example: -1 and 23).
  • 0-col tibble and matrix columns are now formatted with a capital containing [,0] and an empty shaft (#149).

Performance

  • squeeze() is now faster (because the width computation in pillar_shaft.numeric() now uses more arithmetics instead of string concatenation). Further speedups may require implementation of crucial parts in C (#147).
  • Styling output is faster: an expensive check for availability of colored output is carried out only once per call to colonnade(), and styling is implemented manually (#133, @jimhester).

Internal

  • All internal S3 classes have the pillar_ prefix (#156).
  • Only check native output on Windows, due to subtle differences when running on Linux in a latin1 locale.

pillar 1.3.1

CRAN release: 2018-12-15

Bug fixes

  • Fix off-by-one error in distribution of empty space (#141).

Visible changes

  • NA in names is no longer escaped with backticks.
  • Don’t add quotes for pillars formatted with their format() method (tidyverse/tibble#448).

Internal changes

  • Update base type abbrevs to rlang 0.3.0 (#140, @lionel-).
  • Tests work again in a 256-color terminal (#129).

pillar 1.3.0

CRAN release: 2018-07-14

Visible changes

  • Unknown data types are formatted using format(), not as.character() (#120).

  • Multi-tier colonnades can always fill the last tier, even if the width isn’t a proper multiple of getOption("width"). (Example: options(width = 80, tibble.width = 200) will print a wide tibble in three tiers, each 80 characters wide, with a total width of 240 characters.)

  • Fixed mixed formatting (showing some pillars with maximum, and some with minimum width). If a pillar’s minimum width is smaller than getOption("width"), it is shown nevertheless, abbreviated with dots if necessary.

Interface changes

Performance improvements

  • Printing large multi-tier colonnades is much faster, the code that distributes pillars over tiers uses a much simpler and much faster algorithm (tidyverse/tibble#422).

  • Printing is now faster overall, because less work is done for formatting in “subtle” style (gray of a fixed level), and because fansi::strip_sgr() is used instead of crayon::strip_style().

  • Slightly faster printing of colonnades by reusing an intermediate result.

Internal

  • pillar() no longer adds backticks if title is non-syntactic.

  • colonnade() supports data frames and matrices. When printing, each sub-column is shown individually, using a title that resembles the syntax used to access it. Also supports recursively nested data frames (with data frame or matrix columns).

  • Added fuzz tests for character colonnades of varying widths.

  • Use fansi::substr_ctl() in favor of crayon::col_substr().

pillar 1.2.3

CRAN release: 2018-05-25

  • Eliminate CRAN check warning about undeclared withr dependency.
  • More defensive test to address CRAN check failures on Solaris.
  • colonnade() now handles pillars named "sep" (#115).
  • pillar_shaft.character() gains min_width argument.

pillar 1.2.2

CRAN release: 2018-04-26

  • Whole numbers are printed without a decimal dot again. Numbers that are the result of a whole number divided by a power of 10 (subject to a tolerance to account for floating-point imprecision) are shown without trailing decimal zeros, even if these zeros are significant according to the pillar.sigfig option (#105).
  • New new_pillar_title() and new_pillar_type() to support consistent output in glimpse() (#31).
  • New format_type_sum() generic that allows overriding the formatting of the type summary in the capital (#73).
  • The digits.secs option is respected when computing the width for date-time values (#102).

pillar 1.2.1

CRAN release: 2018-02-27

Display

  • Turned off using subtle style for digits that are considered insignificant. Negative numbers are shown all red. Set the new option pillar.subtle_num to TRUE to turn it on again (default: FALSE).
  • The negation sign is printed next to the number again (#91).
  • Scientific notation uses regular digits again for exponents (#90).
  • Groups of three digits are now underlined, starting with the fourth before/after the decimal point. This gives a better idea of the order of magnitude of the numbers (#78).
  • Logical columns are displayed as TRUE and FALSE again (#95).
  • The decimal dot is now always printed for numbers of type numeric. Trailing zeros are not shown anymore if all displayed numbers are whole numbers (#62).
  • Decimal values longer than 13 characters always print in scientific notation.

Bug fixes

  • Numeric values with a "class" attribute (e.g., Duration from lubridate) are now formatted using format() if the pillar_shaft() method is not implemented for that class (#88).
  • Very small numbers (like 1e-310) are now printed correctly (tidyverse/tibble#377).
  • Fix representation of right-hand side for getOption("pillar.sigfig") >= 6 (tidyverse/tibble#380).
  • Fix computation of significant figures for numbers with absolute value >= 1 (#98).

New functions

  • New styling helper style_subtle_num(), formatting depends on the pillar.subtle_num option.

pillar 1.1.0

CRAN release: 2018-01-14

  • NA values are now shown in plain red, without changing the background color (#70).
  • New options to control the output, with defaults that match the current behavior unless stated otherwise:
    • pillar.sigfig to control the number of significant digits, for highlighting and truncation (#72),
    • pillar.subtle to specify if insignificant digits should be printed in gray (#72),
    • pillar.neg to specify if negative digits should be printed in red,
    • pillar.bold to specify if column headers should be printed in bold (default: FALSE, #76),
    • pillar.min_title_chars to specify the minimum number of characters to display for each column name (default: 15 characters, #75).
  • Shortened abbreviations for types: complex: cplx -> cpl, function: fun -> fn, factor: fctr -> fct (#71).
  • Date columns now show sub-seconds if the digits.secs option is set (#74).
  • Very wide tibbles now print faster (#85).

pillar 1.0.1

CRAN release: 2017-11-27

  • Work around failing CRAN tests on Windows.

pillar 1.0.0

CRAN release: 2017-11-20

Initial release.

User functions

pillar(x, title = NULL, width = NULL, ...)
colonnade(x, has_row_id = TRUE, width = NULL, ...)
squeeze(x, width = NULL, ...)

Functions for implementers of data types

new_pillar_shaft_simple(formatted, ..., width = NULL, align = "left", min_width = NULL, na_indent = 0L)
new_pillar_shaft(x, ..., width, min_width = width, subclass)
new_ornament(x, width = NULL, align = NULL)
get_extent(x)
get_max_extent(x)

Utilities

dim_desc(x)
style_na(x)
style_neg(x)
style_num(x, negative, significant = rep_along(x, TRUE))
style_subtle(x)

Testing helper

expect_known_display(object, file, ..., width = 80L, crayon = TRUE)

Own S3 methods

pillar_shaft(x, ...) # AsIs, Date, POSIXt, character, default, list, logical, numeric
type_sum(x) # AsIs, Date, POSIXct, data.frame, default, difftime, factor, ordered
is_vector_s3(x) # Date, POSIXct, data.frame, default, difftime, factor, ordered
obj_sum(x) # AsIs, POSIXlt, default, list
extra_cols(x, ...) # squeezed_colonnade