[groff] A poor mans Excel

[Ulrich Lauther]

Hi all,

I have written a small perlscript, that preprocesses tables
and allows to 

        - add the values in selected collums
        - to replace a table entry by the result of an expression

Lines between
.( 
and
.)
are processed.

The ".(" line may contain the numbers of collums in which addition
is requested, e.g.: 
.( add 2 5 7
or just 
.( 2 5 7

".(" ".)" blocks my be nested; sums calculated at a lower level are
propagated up.


Table entries of the form E.<n> <expression> are repaced by the result
of the expression rounded to n digits after the decimal point.
"expression" is any valid perl expression.
Variables used in the expression are
        - any valid perl variable (starting with "$")
        - $<n>, the value in column n in the current line
        - $S, sum of values in the column (where $S is placed) seen so far
If $S or E.<n> is precedet by an "!", addition is suppressed for this 
table entry.

As all tables of a document are processed by one perl-instance and perl
variables can be created on the fly, values can be tranported from one
table line to a later one or even to another table.

Code size: 130 lines of perl

Limitations: Multiline table enties are not supported.

If there is interest, I'll post the script and an example.

Kind regards,

     ulrich lauther