How can I add a clickable web link in html table of the python script while dealing with prettytables

Question

I am trying to add the web URL to the prettytable of python and generate this in an HTML table... As I am a Linux user, the terminal automatically detects the link present in the table but it is not in the case of HTML ...

and also I am trying to use the same to generate a hyperlink in the table... but I was not able to do it as I am getting many blockages...

my code to generate prettytable in python

diff_table = PrettyTable(["S.NO"," Commit Message", "Author", 'URL','Date','Time'])
for commit in response_differneces_in_json['commits']:
   url = commit['web_url']
   diff_table.add_row([count , commit['title'] , commit['author_name'], "<a href="+url+">click here</a>" ,commit['committed_date'][:10],commit['committed_date'][11:19]])
   text = diff_table.get_html_string(format=True)
   text = html.unescape(text)
   count = count + 1
#here imported the html module

here I am getting output as the same string as click here

and I am generating the html report for this table by :

f.write('<p>'+diff_table.get_html_string()+'</p>')

Here I cannot make a link clickable and how to make the link clickable in Html format and also how to create a hyperlink

or is that possible to manipulate all the columns of the HTML table --> to make it clickable?

Answer 1

As for me all your problem is that you write diff_table.get_html_string() which converts < to < and > to > so you get HTML with

<a href="url">click here</a>

instead of

<a href="url">click here</a>

and later you see string <a href="url">click here</a> instead of link.

---

You should write in file html.unescape(text).

text = diff_table.get_html_string(format=True)
text = html.unescape(text)

with open('index.html', 'w') as f:
    f.write('<p>'+text+'</p>')

---

Minimal working code with example data in code.

BTW: I also add " " around url in '<a href="'+ commit['web_url'] + '">click here</a>'

from prettytable import PrettyTable
import html

diff_table = PrettyTable(['S.NO', 'Commit Message', 'Author', 'URL','Date', 'Time'])

#data = response_differneces_in_json['commits']
data = [
    {
        'title': 'a',
        'author_name': 'b',
        'web_url': 'c',
        'committed_date': '12345678901234567890',
    },
]    
     
for count, commit in enumerate(data, 1):
   diff_table.add_row([
       count,
       commit['title'],
       commit['author_name'],
       '<a href="'+ commit['web_url'] + '">click here</a>',
       commit['committed_date'][:10],
       commit['committed_date'][11:19]
   ])

# --- after loop ---

text = diff_table.get_html_string(format=True)
text = html.unescape(text)

with open('index.html', 'w') as f:
    f.write('<p>'+text+'</p>')

Screenshot from web browser Firefox

Screenshot from text web browser Lynx in terminal (Linux)

Screenshot from text web browser Links in terminal (Linux).

Top Menu is displayed after pressing ESC.

Screenshot from text web browser W3M in terminal (Linux)

There is also browsh which can display: HTML5, CSS3, JS, video and even WebGL.
But it needs Firefox to render it and it may work much slower.