[org-babel] Feature request: Get a scalar for "data=example-table[0, 1]"

[Darlan Cavalcante Moreira <darcamo@gmail.com>]

In the org-babel documentation we see that one can pass a single element
from a table to a babel source block with
,----
! :var data=example-table[0,1]
`----

I assumed that I would get a scalar value, but it seems that I still get a
table (but with only one element). For instance, if I have the table below

#+TBLNAME: MyTable
 |   X |  Y |
 |-----+----|
 |   0 |  0 |
 |   1 |  1 |
 |   2 |  4 |
 |   3 |  9 |
 |   4 | 16 |
 |   5 | 25 |
 |-----+----|
 | Sum | 55 |
 #+TBLFM: $2=$1*$1::@8$2=vsum(@2..@-1)

then the code in python to print the value of sum returns

,----
! #+begin_src python :var sum=MyTable[9,1] :results output :exports none
!    print sum
! #+end_src
!
! #+results:
! : [[55]]
`----

but I would expect to get only 55, since I'm getting a specific element in
MyTable and not a sub-table.

In addition, the hlines are being counted. Is this intended behaviour? I
remember that there is a thread in the list about keeping the hlines in
resulting tables, but even if that is desirable, counting the hlines as
lines will result in troubles (python give me an error if I use
sum=MyTable[9,1], for instance).


I was trying to plot the table with Org-Babel and Gnuplot with the code below

#+begin_src gnuplot :var data=MyTable[1:-2] :var sum=MyTable[7,1]
:results silent :exports none
  reset
  set label "Sum: %.0f",sum at graph 0.03, graph 0.93
  plot data with linespoints
#+end_src

but the sum variable will have the value of a temporary file with the
element [7,1] instead of the actual value. I could use ":var sum=55" but
then I would have to change this whenever I change the table.


- Darlan

ps: How do I do that "cute here start/end"? Is it gnus functionality (I use
wanderlust) or it is more general?