Proposed table syntax

[Carl-Johan Kihlbom]

No offense Joshua, but that looks horrible (IMHO). The idea behind 
Markdown as I have understood it is for the syntax to be as readable in 
its text form as in its HTML form. If you want to use nested tables or 
block elements in cells, use HTML! I'm strongly in favor of Markdown 
keeping its simplicity.

Just my €0.02

/ Carl-Johan

On Oct 22, 2004, at 17:03, Joshua Cook wrote:

> I've been following this thread intently, and I've seen some good
> ideas, but nothing so far has seemed completely acceptable.  So I
> thought about it and came up with my own ideas.
>
> Considering the way tables are marked up in HTML, a few rules come to 
> mind:
>
> 1.  There must be delimiters for the table cells, rows and the table 
> itself.
> 2.  There must be a way to differentiate headers and normal cells.
> 3.  There *will* be a need for block-level formatting with table
> cells.  This includes nested tables.
>
> So here are my ideas:
>
> 1.  Table rows are delimited by a vertical pipe (``|'') at the
> beginning and a line break at the end.
> 2.  Any number (greater than zero) of consecutive table rows make up a 
> table.
> 3.  Vertical pipes within a row delimit cells.  Whitespace is not
> acceptable as a cell delimiter, because it will be used for visual
> formatting.
> 4.  Leading and trailing whitespace within a cell is ignored.  Cells
> containing only whitespace are considered empty.
> 5.  Cells may span multiple lines, and therefore contain block-level
> formatting syntax, by enclosing the cell contents in curly braces
> (``{'' and ``}'').
> 6.  Header cells are identified by an ``='' after the vertical pipe.
>
> An example:
>
>
>     |=     Company         |=     Description            |=     URI
>     | Apple Computer, Inc. |{
>     The maker of:
>
>     * Macintosh
>     * iPod
>     * QuickTime
>     * FireWire
>                                                         }| 
> http://www.apple.com/
>     | Microsoft            | No need for a description.  |
> http://www.microsoft.com/
>
>
> Row- and column-spanning are a different problem.  One idea I had is
> to use a special syntax for defining the attributes of HTML elements.
> This could work for rowspan and colspan for table cells as well as
> class and id for other elements.  Here is a contrived example:
>
>
>     |@[rowspan="2"]    |@[colspan="2"]=                Gender          
>    |
>     |=                                    Male             |= Female
>    |= Average
>     |=                      Avg. Height | 1.9              |  1.7      
>    |  1.8
>     |=                      Avg. Weight | 0.003            |  0.002
>    |  0.0025
>
>
> Which would be formatted like:
>
>
>     <table>
>     <tr><td rowspan="2"></td><th colspan="2">Gender</th><td></td></tr>
>     <tr><th>Male</th><th>Female</th><th>Average</th></tr>
>     <tr><th>Avg. Height</th><td>1.9</td><td>1.7</td><td>1.8</td></tr>
>     <tr><th>Avg. 
> Weight</th><td>0.003</td><td>0.002</td><td>0.0025</td></tr>
>     </table>
>
>
> Extending this example to other elements:
>
>
>     #@[id="title"] A Book Title
>
>     ## Table of Contents
>
>     @[class="toc"]
>     1.  [Chapter 1](#ch1)
>     2.  [Chapter 2](#ch2)
>     3.  [Chapter 3](#ch3)
>         1.  [Section 1](#ch3-1)
>         2.  [Section 2](#ch3-2)
>     4.  [Chapter 4](#ch4)
>
>     #@[id="ch1"] Chapter 1
>
>     #@[id="ch2"] Chapter 2
>
>     #@[id="ch3"] Chapter 3
>
>     ##@[id="ch3-1"] Section 1
>
>     ##@[id="ch3-2"] Section 2
>
>     #@[id="ch4"] Chapter 4
>
>
> would give:
>
>
>     <h1 id="title">A Book Title</h1>
>
>     <h2>Table of Contents</h2>
>
>     <ol class="toc">
>     <li><a href="#ch1">Chapter 1</a></li>
>     <li><a href="#ch2">Chapter 2</a></li>
>     <li><a href="#ch3">Chapter 3</a>
>     <ol>
>     <li><a href="#ch3-1">Section 1</a></li>
>     <li><a href="#ch3-2">Section 2</a></li>
>     </ol>
>     </li>
>     <li><a href="#ch4">Chapter 4</a></li>
>     </ol>
>
>     <h1 id="ch1">Chapter 1</h1>
>
>     <h1 id="ch2">Chapter 2</h1>
>
>     <h1 id="ch3">Chapter 3</h1>
>
>     <h2 id="ch3-1">Section 1</h2>
>
>     <h2 id="ch3-2">Section 2</h2>
>
>     <h1 id="ch4">Chapter 4</h1>