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# boxes - A Pretty Printer for Two Dimensions
boxes is a pretty-printing library for laying out text in two dimensions. It is
a direct port of the Haskell library [boxes](1) by Brent Yorgey.
boxes' core data type is the `Box`, which has a width, a height and some
contents. A box's contents can be text or other boxes. There are functions for
creating boxes from text and for combining boxes into bigger boxes.
## Creating Boxes
The `text` function can be used to create a box from a string, which will have
height 1 and length N, where N is the length of the string (Nx1). `char` creates
a 1x1 box containing a single character. `emptyBox` creates an empty box of
arbitrary width and height.
`para :: Alignment -> Int -> String -> Box` creates a box from a string with a
specific width. The box will be as high as necessary to fit the text, which is
layed out according to the given alignment.
## Combining Boxes
The `<>` and `<+>` operators combine boxes horizontally with and without a
column of space between both boxes, respectively. The `//` and `/+/` operators
are similar, but combine boxes vertically instead of horizontally. `hcat` and
`vcat` are versions of `<>` and `//` that combine whole lists of boxes instead
of two at a time. `hsep` and `vsep` are versions of `<+>` and `/+/` that operate
on lists, with a configurable amount of space between each two boxes.
`punctuateH` and `punctuateV` also combine lists of boxes horizontally and
vertically, but allow us to specify another box which is copied in between each
two boxes.
The `align`, `alignVert` and `alignHoriz` functions can be used to create new
boxes which contain other boxes in some alignment. `moveUp`, `moveLeft`,
`moveDown` and `moveRight` move boxes by some amount inside larger boxes.
`table` creates a table from a list of rows and a list of widths for each
column.
## Rendering Boxes
The `render` function renders a box to a string. The `printBox` function prints
a box to stdout.
[1]: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/boxes
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