Re: [Groff] Creating a table macro

[Automation Department]

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I will look into HDtbl. Was hoping to stay within the boundaries of the
stock groff package if possible, but I'm not married to the idea.

Currently, it's a single pass but that can change if need be. The second
idea, an extension of Ted's idea, sounds like a definite possibility.

Thanks for your input!

Chad Roseburg


On 05/19/2011 02:09 PM, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote:
> 
>> I see now, that for most purposes, macros involving
>> preprocessors should be avoided.
> 
> For the most part, yes.  There probably *are* some cool tricks
> you can do, but they would require a good idea of what happens
> internally.
> 
> 
>> I suppose one alternative would be to use special tags
>> within comments to be targeted with sed/perl/tt/m4 later.
> 
> With regard to tables, you might also try the HDtbl package,
> a set of macros for typesetting tables which runs completely
> within groff, without using a preprocessor.
> 
> 
> Another idea you might pursue is to extend Ted's suggestion to a
> two-pass scheme (if you have forward cross-references in your
> text, you'll usually have a multi-pass scheme already): in the
> first pass, your table macros write out files, which are sourced
> in the second pass (but the source request should not be inside
> a macro, so soelim can pick it up, otherwise tbl won't see the
> table either), maybe like so:
> 
>   .so mytable1.tbl
>   .mytable mytable1.tbl
>   data data data
>   ...
>   .endmytable
> 
> where "mytable" is a macro which writes a file which can be
> parsed by tbl (i.e., everything from .TS to .TE), and whose name
> is specified as an argument (in this example "mytable1.tbl").
> As an exercise for the experts, it might even be possible to
> (ugh!) redefine ".so" as the mytable macro, so you wouldn't
> have to give the filename twice...
> 
> 
> 
> 
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