Table manipulation

This page describes table manipulation functions ^{docs ↗} that allow you to sort, filter, and compute values from any kind of table, including plain Markdown ones and those loaded from CSV.

Example 1

.tablesort {2} order:{descending}
    .csv {assets/people.csv}

Username	Birth year	Favorite food	Favorite drink
iamgio	2002	Pasta	Iced tea
john	1992	Chicken	Orange juice
daniel	1986	Sushi	Beer

Sort rows

The .tablesort function sorts a table based on the values of a specific column.

Parameter	Description	Accepts
`column`	Index of the column, starting from 1.	1 to number of columns.
`order`	Sorting order.	`ascending` (default), `descending`

Example 2

.tablesort {2} order:{descending}
    | Name | Age | City |
    |------|-----|------|
    | John | 25  | NY   |
    | Lisa | 32  | LA   |
    | Mike | 19  | CHI  |

Name	Age	City
Lisa	32	LA
John	25	NY
Mike	19	CHI

Example 3

The sorting follows the most natural way for humans to sort strings (alphanumeric sorting):

.tablesort {2}
    |   Item   | Price |
    |----------|-------|
    | Pencil   | $1    |
    | Eraser   | $0.50 |
    | Backpack | $20   |
    | Notebook | $3    |

Item	Price
Eraser	$0.50
Pencil	$1
Notebook	$3
Backpack	$20

Filter rows

The .tablefilter function keeps or removes rows based on the values of a specific column.

Parameter	Description	Accepts
`column`	Index of the column, starting from 1.	1 to number of columns.
`filter`	Lambda that returns whether each row should be kept, with the value of its cell in the corresponding column as input.	`Dynamic` → `Boolean` lambda

Example 4

.tablefilter {2} {@lambda x: .x::isgreater {20}}
    | Name | Age | City |
    |------|-----|------|
    | John | 25  | NY   |
    | Lisa | 32  | LA   |
    | Mike | 19  | CHI  |

Name	Age	City
John	25	NY
Lisa	32	LA

Compute/aggregate columns

The .tablecompute function computes the cells in a column and appends the result to a new row.

Parameter	Description	Accepts
`column`	Index of the column, starting from 1.	1 to number of columns.
`compute`	Lambda that returns the computed value, with the collection of the cells in the column as input.	`Iterable` → `Dynamic` lambda

See Iterable to learn more about available operations on collections.

Example 5

.tablecompute {2} {@lambda x: .x::average::round}
    | Name | Age | City |
    |------|-----|------|
    | John | 25  | NY   |
    | Lisa | 32  | LA   |
    | Mike | 19  | CHI  |

Name	Age	City
John	25	NY
Lisa	32	LA
Mike	19	CHI
	25

Composition

You can chain multiple table operations. The order of operations goes from inner to outer:

Example 6

.tablecompute {2} {@lambda x: .x::average::round}
    .tablesort {2}
        | Name | Age | City |
        |------|-----|------|
        | John | 25  | NY   |
        | Lisa | 32  | LA   |
        | Mike | 19  | CHI  |

Name	Age	City
Mike	19	CHI
John	25	NY
Lisa	32	LA
	25

Retrieve columns

The .tablecolumn function extracts values from the cells of a specific column and returns them as an Iterable.

Parameter	Description	Accepts
`column`	Index of the column, starting from 1.	1 to number of columns.

Example 7

.var {values}
    .tablecolumn {2}
        | Name | Age | City |
        |------|-----|------|
        | John | 25  | NY   |
        | Lisa | 32  | LA   |
        | Mike | 19  | CHI  |

.values::first

Bulk-retrieve columns

Additionally, the .tablecolumns function returns all the columns from the table as an iterable of iterables. This is more efficient when you need to access multiple columns from the same table, compared to calling .tablecolumn multiple times.

Example 8

.var {columns}
    .tablecolumns
        | Name | Age | City |
        |------|-----|------|
        | John | 25  | NY   |
        | Lisa | 32  | LA   |
        | Mike | 19  | CHI  |

.foreach {.columns}
    col:
    .col::first

John