Re: Bug: named columns in tables not working if name contains "_"

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On Aug 23, 2011, at 3:53 PM, Nick Dokos wrote:

> András Major <andras.g.major@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Yet another one I just stumbled across: if I create a table and use
>> "!" in the first column to assign names to the columns, I can only
>> reference those columns by name in #+TBLFM: if the names don't contain
>> a "_" character.  This isn't mentioned in the docs and shouldn't be
>> so, IMHO.  I haven't checked for other common characters that are
>> prohibited, but the "_" bites me quite a bit.
>> 
> 
> Try adding an underscore to the regexp on line 2179 of org-table.el -
> something like this (untested):
> 
>          ...
> 	  (if (string-match "^[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*$" name)
> 	      (push (cons name (int-to-string cnt)) org-table-column-names))))
> 
> 
> The only characters permitted are alphanumerics. That can probably be
> easily relaxed.

Hi Nick, I don't think it can be easily relaxed.  Many other characters are
operators in Calc and would lead to confusion.

But amending the docs is certainly a good idea.

Thanks

- Carsten