Following up: A function like this one should help.

(defun expand-named-babel-block (block)
    (save-excursion
    (org-babel-goto-named-src-block block)
    (org-babel-expand-src-block)))

However ... there's something strange here with
org-babel-goto-named-src-block (org 9.0.9). It just jumps to the first
source block in the file, which is not that useful :) I'll try to update
org and see.

2017-10-26 13:17 GMT+02:00 Johan W. Klüwer <johan.w.kluwer@gmail.com>:

> Thanks Martin,
>
> These are good suggestions, but it's not quite what I am after. In your
> second example, I would like ":var code=example" to make "code" carry the
> full (and expanded) text of the "example" block, i.e. to have
>
>   echo ls -alh
>
> as the result -- the code itself, unevaluated.
>
> Johan
>
> 2017-10-25 17:52 GMT+02:00 Martin Alsinet <martin@alsinet.com.ar>:
>
>> Johan:
>>
>> To use expanded noweb references you can use text source blocks
>>
>> #+NAME: lscode
>> #+BEGIN_SRC *text*
>> ls -alh
>> #+END_SRC
>>
>>
>> #+NAME: example
>> #+BEGIN_SRC sh :noweb yes
>> echo <<lscode>>
>> #+END_SRC
>>
>> #+RESULTS: example
>> : ls -alh
>>
>>
>> #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :var code=example
>> (message code)
>> #+END_SRC
>>
>> #+RESULTS:
>> : ls -alh
>>
>>
>> Martín
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 10:36 AM Martin Alsinet <martin@alsinet.com.ar>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Johan:
>>>
>>> You can try the following:
>>>
>>> #+NAME: lscode
>>> #+BEGIN_ASCII
>>> ls -alh
>>> #+END_ASCII
>>>
>>> #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :var code=lscode
>>> (message code)
>>> #+END_SRC
>>>
>>> #+RESULTS:
>>> : ls -alh
>>>
>>> I haven't tried the noweb references, but it does return the code block
>>> in the variable.
>>>
>>>
>>> Martín
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 9:22 AM Johan W. Klüwer <
>>> johan.w.kluwer@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is there a way to assign the uninterpreted content of an executable
>>>> source block to a variable? Preferably, using a :var header argument? That
>>>> is, return the text in the block, not the result of evaluating it, and
>>>> preferably with noweb references expanded.
>>>>
>>>> "example" blocks return text the way I want, but they can't be
>>>> evaluated, and of course noweb is ruled out for them.
>>>>
>>>> The function org-babel-ref-resolve could to the job if there were a
>>>> switch to block evaluation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Why this is interesting: I wish to use url-hexify-string on the text of
>>>> a named SPARQL query.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers, Johan
>>>>
>>>
>