Handling blank rows for use with multirow automatically when using datatool

Question

The following example code is slightly adapted from Peter Grill's answer to "Table including rows of a master table".

The problem I'm having is that if I have a multirow, then I need an extra blank line immediately after it. If I'm selecting an arbitary subset of rows, this is hard to do automatically. I thought I could add the blank line (something like &&&&&&&\\) to the csv file at the end of the multirow line, but datatool does not like it. Any other ideas?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{datatool}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\newcommand{\colhead}[1]{\multicolumn{1}{>{\bfseries}l}{#1}}
\newcounter{tabenum}\setcounter{tabenum}{0}
\newcommand{\nextnuml}[1]{\refstepcounter{tabenum}\thetabenum.\label{#1}}

\begin{filecontents*}{foo.dat}
  Hammer001,   Hammer,    1 ,  0 , 1 , 10 , 1 , \multirow{2}{2in}{light (add some words here to wrap around)}\\
  Hammer002,   Hammer,    2 ,  0 , 1 , 10 , 1 , heavy\\
  Hammer003,   Hammer,    3 ,  0 , 1 , 10 , 1 , really heavy\\
  Longsword001,Longsword, 1 , -1 , 2 , 75 , 2 , one-handed \\
  Longsword002,Longsword, 2 , -1 , 2 , 75 , 2 , two-handed \\
  Longsword003,Longsword, 3 , -1 , 2 , 75 , 2 , three-handed \\
\end{filecontents*}

\newcommand{\PrintDTLTable}[2]{%
  % #1 = database to search
  % #2 = list of rowIDs
  \begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c p{3.0cm}}
   & \colhead{Label} & \colhead{Cost} & \colhead{Weight} & \colhead{PropA} & \colhead{PropB} & \colhead{PropC} & \colhead{Description}\\\hline
    \DTLforeach[\DTLisSubString{#2}{\RowID}]{#1}{%
      \RowID=RowID,%
      \Label=Label,%
      \Cost=Cost,%
      \Weight=Weight,%
      \PropA=PropA,%
      \PropB=PropB,%
      \PropC=PropC,%
      \Description=Description%
    }{%
      \nextnuml{\RowID} & \Label &\Cost & \Weight & \PropA & \PropB & \PropC & \Description
    }%
  \end{tabular}
}%

\begin{document}
% \DTLsetseparator{&}% Define separator of the data
\DTLloaddb[noheader,keys={RowID,Label,Cost,Weight,PropA,PropB,PropC,Description}]{myDB}{foo.dat}

% \DTLdisplaydb{myDB}% Usefule for debugging.

\PrintDTLTable{myDB}{Hammer001,Hammer003,Longsword003}

This is a reference to ~\ref{Hammer003}.

\end{document}

Faheem Mitha · Answer 1 · 2014-01-08T16:52:59.500

Actually, the following seems to work. Define

\newcommand{\foo}{&&&&&&&}

Then add \foo to the end of the multirow line. So, whenever the multirow line is included, so is the extra blank line. Does anyone see a problem with this? If you think of a better, more elegant way, please post. For some reason, adding &&&&&&& directly to the csv file gives an error; I'm not sure why. Since I don't really understand how datatool works, an explanation would be appreciated.

Hammer001,   Hammer,    1 ,  0 , 1 , 10 , 1 , \multirow{2}{2in}{light (add some words here to wrap around)}\\ \foo \\

ADDENDUM: Actually, it is even simpler. \foo is not needed. One can just do

Hammer001,   Hammer,    1 ,  0 , 1 , 10 , 1 , \multirow{2}{2in}{light (add some words here to wrap around)}\\ \\

Handling blank rows for use with multirow automatically when using datatool

1 Answers1