Re: Bug: Revert orgtbl-create-or-convert-from-region [6.33x]

[Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com>]

Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> writes:

> Daniel Hornung <daniel.hornung@ds.mpg.de> writes:
>
>> On Monday, August 05, 2013 11:16:55 Thorsten Jolitz wrote:
>>> Daniel Hornung <daniel.hornung@ds.mpg.de> writes:
>>> > I think one great way to increase the usefulness of org-mode would be a
>>> > function which turns a table into a csv or tsv block of text again.
>>> > 
>>> > I assume that the functionality exists already in org-table-export, I
>>> > would just wish for this to be exposed as a function which converts the
>>> > table in place instead of writing it into a new file (org-table-export
>>> > does not allow overwriting the current file).
>>> > 
>>> > This would finally give a comfortable way to edit tsv or csv tables
>>> > without hassles in emacs.
>>> 
>>> Would you need something more sophisticated than this?
>>> 
>>> #+TBLNAME: tbl
>>> 
>>> | header 1 | header 2 | header 3 |
>>> |
>>> |----------+----------+----------|
>>> |
>>> | label1   |        3 |       99 |
>>> | label2   |        2 |       66 |
>>> | label3   |        7 |      231 |
>>> 
>>> #+TBLFM: $3=$2*33
>>> 
>>> #+HEADER: :var table=tbl :hlines no
>>> #+HEADER: :results list verbatim
>>> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>>> (defun tbl2csv (table-as-lisp)
>>>   (mapconcat
>>>    (lambda (row)
>>>      (mapconcat
>>>       (lambda (cell)
>>>          (format "%s" cell))
>>>       row ","))
>>>    table-as-lisp ","))
>>> 
>>> (tbl2csv table)
>>> #+end_src
>>> 
>>> #+results:
>>> : "header 1,header 2,header 3,label1,3,99,label2,2,66,label3,7,231"
>>> 
>>> --
>>> cheers,
>>> Thorsten
>>
>> The idea looks OK, although I did not get it to run with C-x C-e (copied the 
>> content into a new buffer, entered org-mode and executed the elisp
>> code). 
>
> Mmh...it works here ... the table looks a bit distorted in your post ...
>
>> For more specific handling of e.g. strings, the code used in
>> http://orgmode.org/w/?p=org-mode.git;a=blob;f=lisp/org-table.el;hb=HEAD#l601
>> looks more like it could be used already, though. Plus, it allows to
>> specify the column and row separators (e.g. "\t" and "\n").
>
> In tbl2csv, one could replace the two hardcoded "," with function args
> 'col-separator' and 'row-separator'.
>
> Or use something like this:
>
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>   (defun tj/insert-exported-table (&optional insertion-point file)
>     (let ((tmp-file (or file (make-temp-file "foo")))
>           (insert-point (or insertion-point (1+ (org-table-end)))))
>       (org-table-export tmp-file "orgtbl-to-csv")
>       (goto-char insert-point)
>       (insert-file-contents tmp-file)))
> #+end_src
>
> #+results:
> : tj/insert-exported-table
>
> then do 'M-: (tj/insert-exported-table)' on this table:
>
> | header 1 | header 2 | header 3 |
> |----------+----------+----------|
> | label1   |        3 |       99 |
> | label2   |        2 |       66 |
> | label3   |        7 |      231 |
>
> header 1,header 2,header 3
> label1,3,99
> label2,2,66
> label3,7,231

There are orgtbl-to-tsv and orgtbl-to-csv (and orgtbl-to-generic which
the first two call) functions in org: it should be possible to use them
and avoid reinventing wheels.

-- 
Nick