Re: [PATCH] [org-table] user-chosen separator in org-table-convert-region

[francois@avalenn.eu]

On Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:08:10 +0200, Carsten Dominik 
<carsten.dominik@gmail.com> wrote:
> could you please explain what this does and show an example on how 
> this should be used?

It adds the possibility of a string argument used as a regexp for
arbitrary field separator.

It can be used as following :
   (defun my-fjd/convert (beg0 end0 arg)
     (interactive "r\nsSeparator: ")
     (let* ((beg (min beg0 end0))
            (end (max beg0 end0))
            re)
       (org-table-convert-region beg0 end0 arg)
       ))
   (global-set-key (kbd "<f5>T") 'my-fjd/convert)

It permits for example to convert in place csv-like table with
semi-colon separator if I pass ";" as argument.

I modified the patch to add correct documentation in the function.

---
  lisp/org-table.el |    3 +++
  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/lisp/org-table.el b/lisp/org-table.el
index 246cf8d..4883fc6 100644
--- a/lisp/org-table.el
+++ b/lisp/org-table.el
@@ -548,6 +548,7 @@ (defun org-table-convert-region (beg0 end0 
&optional separator)
  '(4)     Use the comma as a field separator
  '(16)    Use a TAB as field separator
  integer  When a number, use that many spaces as field separator
+string   When a string, use it as a regexp for field separator
  nil      When nil, the command tries to be smart and figure out the
           separator in the following way:
           - when each line contains a TAB, assume TAB-separated 
material
@@ -591,6 +592,8 @@ (defun org-table-convert-region (beg0 end0 
&optional separator)
  		 (if (< separator 1)
  		     (user-error "Number of spaces in separator must be >= 1")
  		   (format "^ *\\| *\t *\\| \\{%d,\\}" separator)))
+		((stringp separator)
+		   (format "^ *\\|%s" separator))
  		(t (error "This should not happen"))))
        (while (re-search-forward re end t)
  	(replace-match "| " t t)))
-- 
1.7.10.4