data-generated tables

[brian-bot]

Forgive me if this is a naive question (I'm new to pandoc and manubot) - but I was wondering if there is a way that tables can be generated from data files (either delimited files or json/yaml) as can be done with jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/docs/datafiles/). Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[dhimmel]

I was wondering if there is a way that tables can be generated from data files

Unfortunately, there is no built-in Pandoc support for this. It would be a nice feature for Manubot, because we want data to be defined in one and only one place.

Some comments on solutions in #339. There are Pandoc filters like pandoc-placetable that enable tables from CSV URLs. You'd have to install a haskel package on CI, which would be possible but perhaps not super easy.

So I think this is something you could add to a Manubot manuscript, but it would require a bit of customization.

[brian-bot]

Thanks for the note, Daniel - appreciate the response. I'll update this issue if I come up with a customized solution.

[agitter]

You'd have to install a haskel package on CI, which would be possible but perhaps not super easy.

If you do pursue the pandoc-placetable option and need to install a Haskell package in the GitHub Actions workflow, the actions/setup-haskell can simplify the process. You can check agitter/my-manuscript#16 for an example. The two steps I added are:

      - name: Setup Haskell
        uses: actions/setup-haskell@v1.1
      - name: Test Haskell
        run: |
          cabal update
          cabal install pandoc-placetable

It looks like it installs pandoc-placetable correctly, but I didn't actually test the Pandoc filter.

[dhimmel]

I didn't actually test the Pandoc filter.

@brian-bot the place you'd want to add the filter would be at:

rootstock/build/pandoc/defaults/common.yaml

Lines 4 to 9 in adc7b8b

	filters:
	- pandoc-fignos
	- pandoc-eqnos
	- pandoc-tablenos
	- pandoc-manubot-cite
	- pandoc-citeproc

I think you'd want to add - pandoc-placetable. the order won't matter unless there is some interaction.