[PATCH 0/3] org-sbe fixes

[Vladimir Panteleev <git@thecybershadow.net>]

Inspired by this SE question:

https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/32895/how-to-feed-range-from-org-table-filled-with-strings-to-code-block-via-tblfm

Passing table ranges through org-sbe is too hard, and even then the
solution there was not fully correct (did not handle empty cells and
'"' characters properly). As it turns out, we can improve the
situation by addressing some critical shortcomings in the
implementation of org-sbe itself.

There are still quite a few "funny" things left about org-sbe:

 - How var and "var" (as the value for a variable) mean the same
   thing. This matches the syntax used in org-mode documents, but
   doesn't make much sense as part of an API. This creates an
   additional hurdle of using it in tables (references must be further
   $-prefixed, and this $-prefixing will fail in a bad way with
   ranges).

 - The confusing $"string" syntax (or $$3 in tables). It looks like
   some distinct syntax (like bash localizable strings), but $"string"
   is in fact parsed as two tokens ($ and "string").

 - The undocumented syntax where using more than one value for a
   variable implicitly converts it into a list.

 - How these implicit lists are handled differently than single
   values, including when they are also lists.

 - The way it encodes its parameters into a string, just so another
   part of org-mode can decode it later. This happens on two levels,
   org-babel-parse-header-arguments (in org-sbe itself) and parsing of
   the actual argument values.

 - How there are no tests for the entire file, except one that has
   been disabled and left as a TODO since 2011.

This is my first org-mode contribution. I've already done the
copyright assignment process for my first Emacs contribution from last
year, so hopefully that applies here as well.

Vladimir Panteleev (3):
  ob-table: Fix org-sbe's handling of quotes in arguments
  ob-table: Fix org-sbe's handling of list arguments
  ob-table: Mention passing ranges as lists in org-sbe's documentation

 lisp/ob-table.el              | 21 ++++++++++++++-------
 testing/lisp/test-ob-table.el | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 44 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

-- 
2.16.2