def pp(cursor, data=None, rowlens=0): d = cursor.description if not d: return "#### NO RESULTS ###" names = [] lengths = [] rules = [] if not data: t = cursor.fetchall() for dd in d: # iterate over description l = dd[1] if not l: l = 12 # or default arg ... l = max(l, len(dd[0])) # handle long names names.append(dd[0]) lengths.append(l) for col in range(len(lengths)): if rowlens: rls = [len(str(row[col])) for row in data if row[col]] lengths[col] = max([lengths[col]]+rls) rules.append("-"*lengths[col]) format = " ".join(["%%-%ss" % l for l in lengths]) result = [format % tuple(names)] result.append(format % tuple(rules)) for row in data: result.append(format % row) return "\n".join(result)