[Table-request] Header rows for table.el

[David G. <dgo...@bi...>]

Hello,

[Although I wrote to Mr. Ota personally about this many months ago, this is
to make the feature request "official".]

I am working on an autodocumentation tool for Python, the Python Docstring
Processing System (DPS). One component of the DPS is a parser,
reStructuredText. The reStructuredText parser will soon include support for
tables almost identical to those produced by table.el. The only difference
is that the reStructuredText tables allow for the explicit markup of the row
separator line between the table head and body, using equals signs ("=")
instead of hyphens ("-"). Only one such row separator may use "=", and it
must extend across the entire table (i.e., no row spans across the head/body
boundary). A reStructuredText table with a single head row looks like this::

    +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+
    | Header row, column 1   | Header 2   | Header 3 | Header 4 |
    | (header rows optional) |            |          |          |
    +========================+============+==========+==========+
    | body row 1, column 1   | column 2   | column 3 | column 4 |
    +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+
    | body row 2             | Cells may span columns.          |
    +------------------------+------------+---------------------+
    | body row 3             | Cells may  | - Table cells       |
    +------------------------+ span rows. | - contain           |
    | body row 4             |            | - body elements.    |
    +------------------------+------------+---------------------+

I would like to formally request that the headrow-separator feature be added
to table.el. It makes conversion to CALS tables and other models much
simpler, and makes automatic conversion of head rows possible.

I hope an experienced elisper takes an interest in this. If not, I will
eventually try to implement it, but it may take me a while.

Submitted feature request #450284:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=450284&group_id=141
37&atid=364137

Thank you.

-- 
David Goodger    dgo...@bi...    Open-source projects:
 - Python Docstring Processing System: http://docstring.sourceforge.net
 - reStructuredText: http://structuredtext.sourceforge.net
 - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sourceforge.net