Hi Martin,
 
There's also [issue 553](https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/553).
 
Personally, I think I like (from that issue thread) anton-k's
original idea:
 
![an image](foo.jpg)
 
![an include](foo.txt)
 
![a csv to be rendered as a table](foo.csv)
 
(that is, based on filename extension)
 
Those seem sensible, symmetrical, easy to remember, and I think fit well
with what pandoc already does (`![]()` is already like an include).
 
As for a syntax to allow writing your csv data right into your md file,
... Pandoc already supports a generous number of table formats that are
pretty easy to type. And for larger tables that you might be tempted to
copy/paste in, might be better easier to bang-include them (as in,
`![]()`), rather than muck up your pretty markdown file with a giant
bunch of csv data. :)
 
-- John
 
 
 
 
On Fri, May 20, 2016, at 05:38 AM, Martin Fenner wrote:
> Dear group,
>
> The topic of CSV support in Pandoc has come up several times on this
> list, includes this thread from 2014:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pandoc-discuss/kBdJU_JktzI
>
> Since last year I work for an organisation that frequently deals with
> tabular data (and helped organize CSVconf earlier this month), and I
> have done some thinking on how CSV could fit into Pandoc. I see two
> important use cases:
>
> * CSV reader that converts to tables in HTML, docx, latex, etc.
> * CSV has a format to describe tables in markdown
>
> For the first use case I wrote a hack for the Jekyll blogging
> platform this week that turns CSV files into markdown grid tables
> format that is then processed by Pandoc
> (https://github.com/datacite/jekyll-csvy). I would rather use Pandoc
> with a CSV reader, but my Haskell isn't good enough to write one. But
> for now I can generate blog posts directly from CSV files. Other
> people have done similar things with Pandoc and CSV.
>
> For the second use case I see a clear advantage of CSV over the
> various attempts to format tables in markdown (simple_tables,
> multiline_tables, grid_tables, pipe_tables). Everyone (and many tools)
> understands the CSV format, and you can do most of the things with CSV
> that the other table formats allow (multi-column formats and column
> alignment are a bit trickier). This has been done before using Pandoc
> filters, but I think a Pandoc "csv_tables" Pandoc extension would make
> this easier for the casual user. Using the grid_tables example from
> the Pandoc documentation, this could look like this:
>
> : Sample csv table.
>
> ,,,
> Fruit,Price,Advantages
> Bananas,$1.34,- built-in wrapper\n- bright color
> Oranges,$2.10, - cures scurvy\n- tasty
> ,,,
>
> I like three commas on a new line to indicate the start and end of
> a table, but that is of course open for discussion. The format is
> much easier to read and edit for humans compared to grid tables,
> the only tricky bit is maybe the \n for multiline columns. I would
> think we could add metadata to the fenced table blog similar to
> code blocks, e.g.
>
> ,,,{ #mytable .numberRows }
>
> One challenge with CSV is that it is an ill-defined format somewhat
> similar to markdown before CommonMark. It may make things easier to
> only support a specific CSV variant (e.g. comma as separator, header
> required, comment lines not allowed).
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Best,
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
> --
>  You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>  Groups "pandoc-discuss" group.
>  To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
>  send an email to pandoc-discuss+unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
>  To post to this group, send email to pandoc-discuss-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
>  To view this discussion on the web visit
>  https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/20BF19CB-A2B0-4B19-A749-D750CDD89736%40martinfenner.org[1].
>  For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
 

Links:

  1. https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/20BF19CB-A2B0-4B19-A749-D750CDD89736%40martinfenner.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "pandoc-discuss" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pandoc-discuss+unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
To post to this group, send email to pandoc-discuss-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/1463766905.1918988.613990665.6CD67781%40webmail.messagingengine.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.