Building a table with automatically numbered rows.
This example shows some simple macros for building a table whose items
are numbered.
Here's what the table looks like
| 1 |
Bananas |
| 2 |
Apples |
| 3 |
Peaches |
| 4 |
Oranges |
| 5 |
Lemons |
The table row numbers are generated using a couple of simple macros:
define(`num', `1')
define(`incnum', `define(`num', incr(num))')
The first of these is easy. It simply defines num as a macro that
produces the number 1. The second macro, incnum is far
more interesting. When m4 encounters it, its effect is to redefine the
num macro to produce the next higher number. This is done
using the built-in m4 macro incr which increments a number.
Given these macros, the construction of the table is trivial. Here is
the complete htm4l text. Notice that I use another macro
my_row to produce each row.
define(`num', `1')
define(`incnum', `define(`num', incr(num))')
define(`my_row', `<tr> <td align="center"><strong>num</strong></td>
<td> $1 </td> </tr> incnum')
<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="5">
my_row(`Bananas')
my_row(`Apples')
my_row(`Peaches')
my_row(`Oranges')
my_row(`Lemons')
</table>
</center>
This is a first example of defining a macro that defines another
macro. I use this in the example that generates nx1 and 1xn
tables and ordered and unordered lists. You can read about it
here
if you haven't checked it out already.
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home page.
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examples page.
© Terry Jones (terry <AT> jon.es).
Last modified: Mon Oct 2 02:21:32 CEST 2006