Re: Inserting tables programatically in elisp

[Heime <heimeborgia@protonmail.com>]

------- Original Message -------
On Saturday, November 5th, 2022 at 9:02 AM, Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> wrote:

> * Heime heimeborgia@protonmail.com [2022-11-05 10:45]:
> 
> > Have been introspecting the possibility of conveniently inserting table programatically
> > in elisp and encountered "table.el".

> I would go programmatically not by hard coding the table walk, but by
> using some structure, for example:
> 
> (setq my-table '(("ID" "Description" "Amount") ;; this must be header
> (1 "Payment for domain" 10.50)
> (2 "Transfer from Doe" 250)))
> 
> Then I would use some function, something like:
> 
> (my-org-table-generate my-table calculat-total 3rd-column)
> 
> Then the function would only interpolate the table with basic
> small details, which allow later automatic table alignment:
> 
> (defun rcd-org-table-cell (object)
> (cond ((numberp object) (format "| %.2f " object))
> (t (format "| %s " object))))
> 
> (rcd-org-table-cell "Hello") ⇒ "| Hello "
> 
> (defun rcd-org-table-horizontal-line ()
> "Return `|-' as horizontal-line."
> "|--\n")
> 
> then for rows:
> 
> (defun rcd-org-table-row (list)
> (with-temp-buffer
> (while list
> (insert (rcd-org-table-cell (pop list))))
> (insert "\n")
> (buffer-string)))
> 
> This means you can do something like:
> 
> (rcd-org-table-row '("ID" "Description" "Amount")) ⇒ "| ID | Description | Amount "
> 
> then you make the main function:
> 
> (defun rcd-org-table (structure)
> (let ((header (pop structure)))
> (with-temp-buffer
> (insert "\n")
> (insert (rcd-org-table-row header))
> (insert (rcd-org-table-horizontal-line))
> (while structure
> (insert (rcd-org-table-row (pop structure))))
> (insert "\n")
> (org-mode)
> (goto-char 2)
> (org-table-align)
> (buffer-substring-no-properties (point-min) (point-max)))))
> 
> And now the final result:
> 
> (rcd-org-table my-table) ⇒ "
> | ID | Description | Amount |
> |------+--------------------+--------|
> | 1.00 | Payment for domain | 10.50 |
> | 2.00 | Transfer from Doe | 250.00 |
> 
> "

The problem I see is that the code assumes use of org-mode, whereas I am interested in
more general tables in any buffer.  At first perhaps just making a table for display rather
than for user interaction.