issues: 197709208

I first posted this to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/xarray/wjPtXMr91sg .

I'm afraid I'm not set up to submit a PR, but I think something like the following should work once one has created a last_n_items() similar to the existing first_n_items().

Also, I wonder if it would make sense to change the minimum number of items displayed from 1 to min(2, items_ndarray.size).

``` def format_array_flat(items_ndarray, max_width): """Return a formatted string for as many items in the flattened version of items_ndarray that will fit within max_width characters """ # every item will take up at least two characters, but we always want to # print at least one item max_possibly_relevant = max(int(np.ceil(max_width / 2.0)), 1) relevant_items = sum(([x, y] for (x, y) in zip(first_n_items(items_ndarray, (max_possibly_relevant + 1) // 2), reversed(last_n_items(items_ndarray, max_possibly_relevant // 2)))), []) pprint_items = format_items(relevant_items)

cum_len = np.cumsum([len(s) + 1 for s in pprint_items]) - 1
if (max_possibly_relevant < items_ndarray.size or
        (cum_len > max_width).any()):
    padding = u' ... '
    count = max(np.argmax((cum_len + len(padding)) > max_width), 1)
else:
    count = items_ndarray.size
    padding = u'' if (count <= 1) else u' '

pprint_str = u' '.join(np.take(pprint_items, range(0, count, 2))) + padding + \
             u' '.join(np.take(pprint_items, range(count - (count % 2) - 1, 0, -2)))
return pprint_str

```