Show notes for my video on org tables

tables.org

Org tables

Creating a table

| |

Designates a table

|-

Followed by a space will create a horizontal line

• you can navigate them intuitively with tab return etc

  Name	Age
  Gavin	100
  $solve\left( [x = y + 10, y=10], [x,y] \right)$

Manipulating tables

• My arrow keys are broken at the moment but additional shortcuts exist to navigate and rearange using them e.g.

  Move a field

  S-Left S-right

  Move a column

  M-Left M-Right

  Move a row

  M-Down M-Up

  Deleting a row

  S-M-Up

  Adding a row

  , S-M-Down

  Deleting a column

  S-M-Down

  Adding a column

  , S-M-up

  tim	20	jane
  10	jim	30
  30	20	10

Don’t worry about the arrow keys too much. Learn them when you find yourself repeating things

Copy Pasting

• Copy pasting
  • C-c C-x M-w(copy)/C-w(cut)/C-y(paste) lets

ex	val	age
james	12	40
tim	2	30
ex3	val
james
tim

Generating tables

C-c |

converts CSV or TSV into a table

• useful when copy and pasting from websites

e.g.

cats,dogs,birds

M-x org-table-import

import a csv or tsv as a table

• ~/results/results.csv

Calculations

C-c =

set a calculation for a column

C-u C-c =

set a calculation for a specific field

How I usually add a formula to a table is simply using := in a field and hitting tab

10	20
1	11
12	0

• NOTE: the TBLFM at the bottom keeps track of these formulas for us.

C-c *

to recalculate fields

C-u C-c C-c

will also align, and calculate

References

One of the powerful parts of org tables is the ability to do spreadsheet like references.

C-c ’

edit the formula for a specific field

• lets you use S-arrows to reference different fields

test	thing
1	11

C-c }

Display locations inline

C-c ?

Get the location of the current element

C-c C-c

will also align

• references
• @ Refers to the row
• $ Refers to the column
• > Means the last of the
• .. is used to create a range

test	face
0	10
20	108
[0, 10, 20, 108]

• Remote tables

Thing	Cost
Car	50000
House	1000000

Total
1050000

• calc#Top

Using Tables For Org Babel

While tables are great as is they sometimes we want more than just a simple hand written table

Ensure you have the proper babel support setup

(org-babel-do-load-languages
 'org-babel-load-languages
 '((sqlite . t)
   (R . t)
   (python . t)
   (emacs-lisp . t)))

Code output

One common usecase for tables you will see is displaying results from org babel

return [i for i in range(5)]

Pretty Cool Hey?

Tables as data

We can also intake this data

From	To
jim	john
tim	drake
griff	step

(reduce #'concat
        (mapcar (lambda (row) (format "from %s to %s\n"
                                      (cl-first row) (cl-second row)))
                data))

More practical Usecase

Setup sqlite support for org-babel

What about something more advanced (and useful) like investigating a database

Here I will poke at a sqlite db I have containing multiple resturants

SELECT * FROM resturants LIMIT 10;

Thats a little noisy so lets select some important attributes

SELECT name, rating, hours, category, latitude, longitude FROM resturants LIMIT 10;

Now while exporting those results is useful what about importing them?

Yes some languages let you import tables. Probably the most useful example being sql

lets create a new database for this one

Who	Task
Gavin	“Make Video”
Gavin	“Edit Video”
Jim	“Be Cool”
Tim	“Do Your Thing”

• NOTE: we are setting the value of the variable sometable to be our testtable

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS ntable;
.import $sometable ntable

SELECT Who, Task FROM ntable where Who is 'Gavin';

Lets have a peek at what was just stored in the DB

Open DB

For those interested in learning more

• SQLite Source Code Blocks in Org Mode
• SQL Source Code Blocks in Org Mode

Using tables for Math

Another usecase is working with mathmatical programming languages like R

• NOTE: R language support comes from the 3rd party ESS package

Make sure that you have R setup to work with org babel after installing ess

Install R support

(use-package ess :ensure t)

Allow for execution of R code

(org-babel-do-load-languages
 'org-babel-load-languages
 '((R . t)))

Month	Degrees
1	3.8
2	4.1
3	6.3
4	9.0
5	11.9
6	15.1
7	17.1
8	17.4
9	15.7
10	11.8
11	7.7
12	4.8

plot(data, type="b", bty="l", col=c("#ABD249"), las=1, lwd=4)
grid(nx=NULL, ny=NULL, col=c("#E8E8E8"), lwd=1)
legend("bottom", legend=c("Degrees"), col=c("#ABD249"), pch=c(19))

We can preview these results using C-c C-x C-v

If usecases like this interest you but emacs is new to you have a look at

• jkitchin/scimax: An emacs starterkit for scientists and engineers