Wishlist: allow range of table elements to be filled by sbe

Wishlist: allow range of table elements to be filled by sbe

[András Major]

Hi,

I'd like to use a babel code block to fill a table with values.  The
sbe elisp function looks like the right thing for this task, but it
appears that the result of the code block always goes into a single
cell of a table.  I can specify ranges of values, but then the entire
output is placed into each of the specified cells.

Here is how I imagine things should work:

#+srcname: shcode
#+begin_src sh :exports output table silent
  echo "1 2 3"
#+end_src

| 1 | 2 | 3 |
#+TBLFM: $1..$3='(sbe shcode)

Note that this is *NOT* real output from the code block in the current
version of org-mode, it's what I want it to be.  There are two things
that cause this to break at the moment:

- The range $1..$3 doesn't work, I have to prepend a row specifier as
  in @<$1..@>$3 or suchlike, which is rather counterintuitive but
  seems to work.

- The output "1 2 3" are not separated into the various cells but all
  placed into each cell.

Or am I doing something wrong here?

  András

Re: Wishlist: allow range of table elements to be filled by sbe

[Eric Schulte]

András Major <andras.g.major@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I'd like to use a babel code block to fill a table with values.  The
> sbe elisp function looks like the right thing for this task, but it
> appears that the result of the code block always goes into a single
> cell of a table.  I can specify ranges of values, but then the entire
> output is placed into each of the specified cells.
>
> Here is how I imagine things should work:
>
> #+srcname: shcode
> #+begin_src sh :exports output table silent
>   echo "1 2 3"
> #+end_src
>
> | 1 | 2 | 3 |
> #+TBLFM: $1..$3='(sbe shcode)
>
> Note that this is *NOT* real output from the code block in the current
> version of org-mode, it's what I want it to be.  There are two things
> that cause this to break at the moment:
>
> - The range $1..$3 doesn't work, I have to prepend a row specifier as
>   in @<$1..@>$3 or suchlike, which is rather counterintuitive but
>   seems to work.
>
> - The output "1 2 3" are not separated into the various cells but all
>   placed into each cell.
>
> Or am I doing something wrong here?
>

sbe is just an elisp function which is called by the Org-mode
spreadsheet's function evaluation mechanisms.  The spreadsheet does not
allow for insertion of results into multiple cells and thus neither does
the use of sbe.  I would recommend a solution like the following, which
reads the /entire/ table into a code block, and writes the results out
in place.

#+results: this-is-the-table
| 1 | 4 | 7 |
| 2 | 5 | 8 |
| 3 | 6 | 9 |

#+source: this-is-the-table
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :var table=this-is-the-table
  (mapcar (lambda (row) (mapcar (lambda (cell) (* cell 2)) row)) table)
#+end_src

Every time the code block is evaluated multiple cells in the table are
changed.  To only set specific table values use of the `setf' macro
would probably be more appropriate.

Hope this helps -- Eric

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte/

Re: Wishlist: allow range of table elements to be filled by sbe

[András Major]

Hi Eric,

> sbe is just an elisp function which is called by the Org-mode
> spreadsheet's function evaluation mechanisms.  The spreadsheet does not
> allow for insertion of results into multiple cells and thus neither does
> the use of sbe.

Hmmm.  It appears that one can make sbe set multiple cells in the
table -- simply make your code block output multiple results separated
by "|" and set ":results table".  This, however, also shifts any
existing cells in the table, thus increasing the number of columns,
instead of just overwriting the given number of cells.

> I would recommend a solution like the following, which
> reads the /entire/ table into a code block, and writes the results out
> in place.

This isn't always practical.  In the case of the Org document I'm
writing at the moment, the computation is rather expensive, and my
goal is that you can edit a row in the table and run the calculation
just for that row to see the result.  Updating the entire table at
once would be much too slow.

> Every time the code block is evaluated multiple cells in the table are
> changed.  To only set specific table values use of the `setf' macro
> would probably be more appropriate.

How is setf used?  I haven't found it in the documentation.

  András

Re: Wishlist: allow range of table elements to be filled by sbe

[Michael Brand]

Hi András

I am not sure if you really need the data between the sh output and
the sbe input as a table. If not, this can be used:

#+source: shcode(x = 0)
#+begin_src sh
  echo "$x"
#+end_src

| 1 | 2 | 3 |
#+TBLFM: @1$1..@1$3 = '(sbe "shcode" (x "$#"))

Michael

2011/8/19 András Major <andras.g.major@gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to use a babel code block to fill a table with values.  The
> sbe elisp function looks like the right thing for this task, but it
> appears that the result of the code block always goes into a single
> cell of a table.  I can specify ranges of values, but then the entire
> output is placed into each of the specified cells.
>
> Here is how I imagine things should work:
>
> #+srcname: shcode
> #+begin_src sh :exports output table silent
>  echo "1 2 3"
> #+end_src
>
> | 1 | 2 | 3 |
> #+TBLFM: $1..$3='(sbe shcode)
>
> Note that this is *NOT* real output from the code block in the current
> version of org-mode, it's what I want it to be.  There are two things
> that cause this to break at the moment:
>
> - The range $1..$3 doesn't work, I have to prepend a row specifier as
>  in @<$1..@>$3 or suchlike, which is rather counterintuitive but
>  seems to work.
>
> - The output "1 2 3" are not separated into the various cells but all
>  placed into each cell.
>
> Or am I doing something wrong here?

Re: Wishlist: allow range of table elements to be filled by sbe

[Eric Schulte]

Hi András,

András Major <andras.g.major@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Eric,
>
>> sbe is just an elisp function which is called by the Org-mode
>> spreadsheet's function evaluation mechanisms.  The spreadsheet does not
>> allow for insertion of results into multiple cells and thus neither does
>> the use of sbe.
>
> Hmmm.  It appears that one can make sbe set multiple cells in the
> table -- simply make your code block output multiple results separated
> by "|" and set ":results table".  This, however, also shifts any
> existing cells in the table, thus increasing the number of columns,
> instead of just overwriting the given number of cells.
>
>> I would recommend a solution like the following, which
>> reads the /entire/ table into a code block, and writes the results out
>> in place.
>
> This isn't always practical.  In the case of the Org document I'm
> writing at the moment, the computation is rather expensive, and my
> goal is that you can edit a row in the table and run the calculation
> just for that row to see the result.  Updating the entire table at
> once would be much too slow.
>

Unfortunately I don't believe there is a good solution to this problem.

>
>> Every time the code block is evaluated multiple cells in the table are
>> changed.  To only set specific table values use of the `setf' macro
>> would probably be more appropriate.
>
> How is setf used?  I haven't found it in the documentation.
>

Setf can be used to update internal parts of a data structure, for
example.

#+results: this-is-another-table
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |

#+source: this-is-another-table
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :var table=this-is-another-table
  (setf (nth 1 table) '(2 2 2))
  table
#+end_src

executing the code block will set the second row of the table to all
twos.

Hope this helps -- Eric

>
>   András
>
>
>

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte/