> this is interesting. At the moment I am in the need of exactly > the same thing. So this comes in handy. However I want to have > a variable parameter list. At maximum I can have up to 10 > parameters. Each parameter opens a new row. If the Parameter > is empty the do not open a new row. > The following didn't work. Seems I am missing something
[snip] I can't think of a simple way to make this work. The problem lies in the nature of tbl as a *pre*processor, which expects to have all the data it has to operate on available at *tbl*-runtime, not *troff*-runtime. Of course, since tbl knows nothing about font sizes and font metrics and whatnot, it can't position the individual table items itself, so instead it generates troff-*code* which troff can execute to decide how to format the table. The solution I posted simply exploited this feature of tbl, namely substituting stuff which tbl deferred to troff anyway. But this only works if the layout is the same, just the contents different. You can't change the *shape* (i.e., number of rows or columns) of the table by this method, because the troff code to handle additional items simply isn't there in macro that we use to save the tbl code. (tbl didn't generate any, since these items weren't there when tbl looked at the table and decided what code to generate for troff.) Of course, if you write the necessary code to handle a variable number of items yourself (instead of having tbl write the code for you) then what you want is possible (see hdtbl, which operates at troff-runtime). I just don't see how it can be done with the way that tbl works. _______________________________________________ Groff mailing list Groff@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff