John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I have been using tables as variables for codeblocks on an org-file, e.g.
> #+tblname: class-data
> | user      | oxide | xc |
> | jkitchin  | TiO2  | LDA|
> ...
>
> #+BEGIN_SRC python :var data=class-data
> from pylab import *
> import numpy as np
>
> vol = [x[1]  if x[1] != '' else np.nan for x in data]
> B = [x[2] if x[2] != '' else np.nan for x in data  ]
>
> scatter(vol, B)
> xlabel('Volume ($\AA^3$)')
> ylabel('Bulk modulus (GPa)')
> title('All polymorphs of all oxides for all functionals')
> show()
> #+END_SRC
>
> This is a fantastic feature, since I can have some code that is
> expensive to run create the table, but then have analysis code that is
> quick, since it only reads the table.
>
> But, sometimes the tables are defined in other org-files.  Is there a
> way to specify a table from another org-file in the variable header?
>
> Something like this would be pretty handy:
>
> :var ./org-file.org::class-data
>
> Especially if I could click on it, and have it open the other org-file
> with point at the table!
>
> Any thoughts? Thanks,
>

Hi John,

This feature does exist, and your guess at the syntax is almost correct.
To reference a variable named foo1 in a file named foo.org you would use
the following syntax, ":var data=foo.org:foo1".

See the attached foo.org and bar.org files for an example (in order to
work they must be in the same directory).

I'll make a note to mention this functionality in the documentation.

Best,