list-table support for conversion ReST files

[lruzicka]

list-table RST conversion problem

Problem description

I wanted to convert some .rst files and pandoc reported the following error:

pandoc: ignoring unknown directive: list-table "source" (line 351, column 1)

I went through the source file and realized that it does not recognize the list-table directive that is used by reSt to define a table.

How does that work.

The table designed by the list-table directive look like this:

.. list-table:: Frozen Delights!
   :widths: 15 10 30
   :header-rows: 1

   * - Treat
     - Quantity
     - Description
   * - Albatross
     - 2.99
     - On a stick!
   * - Crunchy Frog
     - 1.49
     - If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be
       crunchy, now would it?
   * - Gannet Ripple
     - 1.99
     - On a stick!

Where:

• ..list-table:: is the beginning of the table data
• Frozen Delights! is the title.
• :widths: define how wide each column should be
• :header-rows: defines the header row (makes it bold)
• each * represents a new row
• each - represents a column in that row

This would make the following output:

Treat	Quantity	Description
Albatross	2.99	On a stick!
Crunchy Frog	1.49	If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be,crunchy, now would it?
Gannet Ripple	1.99	On a stick!

Problem solution

It would be nice, if support for understanding tables in this format could be added. Thanks.

[jgm]

This should be pretty easy to implement. However, I note that the RST reader seems to have a bug in recognizing this kind of list, which would need to be fixed too.

[jgm]

Here's a test case for the bug mentioned above:

% pandoc -f rst
* - a
  - b
* - c
  - d
^D
<ul>
<li><ul>
<li>a</li>
</ul>
- b</li>
<li><ul>
<li>c</li>
<li>d</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

[gingerhot]

hi, when I try to convert a ghc user guide file:

https://github.com/bgamari/ghc-users-guide/blob/master/content/using-warnings.rst

and I have similar error messages:

[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown role :ghc-flag: in "source" (line 1057, column 63)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 1057, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 1047, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 1041, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 1035, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 1029, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 1006, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 993, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 971, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 950, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 932, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 921, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 901, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 889, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 859, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 846, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 825, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 821, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 809, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 793, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 786, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 764, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 746, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 724, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 707, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 694, column 1)
[pandoc warning] ignoring unknown directive: ghc-flag "source" (line 684, column 1)

...

I use a pandoc version 1.19.2.1 in a Ubuntu 16.04 64bit EC2 node.

Thanks a lot.

[jgm]

@gingerhot the problem here is that your document uses some custom rst directives (hlist, ghc-option). pandoc has no way of knowing what these mean. (rst2html.py will also choke on them, unless special python definitions of the custom directives are given.)

One possible change would be to have pandoc emit the block-level contents of any unknown directive. So, in the list-table case above, pandoc would at least emit the list, and similarly with your hlist. (However, in this case the ghc-option itself would still be omitted.)