How can I handle table record with many parameters without CSV?

Question

I have the following situation: I get a record like this

\row{day,dayShort,date}{come,go,break,breakGo}{hours,days}{project}

from an external program. This program commits 30 or 40 records and I have to create a time sheet then in LaTex using longtable. I think, that THIS is not very useful, like one of the User said, but that's the way I get the data.

I have already found a way with csv, but it's not really a perfect way for us.

I also have tried something like this, but I cannot handwrite every single record, because I don't know how many records I'll get:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel} 
\usepackage{longtable}

\newcommand*{\FormDay}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormDayShort}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormDate}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormType}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormCome}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormGo}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormBreak}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormBreakGo}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormHours}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormDays}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormProject}[1]{#1}

\newenvironment{timesheet}
{\begin{longtable} 
{@{}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.125\textwidth}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.1\textwidth}p{0.1\textwidth}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.15\textwidth}}     
Day   & Date    & Type  & Come   & Go   & Hours   & Days    & Project   \tabularnewline[2ex]
 \FormDayShort{Di}      & \FormDate {01.09.2015}    & \FormType{U}      &
 \FormCome{08:00}       & \FormGo{17:00}            &
 %\FormBreak{12:00}     & \FormBreakGo{13:00}       &
 \FormHours{08,00}      & \FormDays{1}              & \FormProject{Airplane Hangar}                 \tabularnewline
\endhead
}
{
\hline 
\end{longtable}
}
\begin{document}

{\huge Timesheet} \hfill 

\begin{timesheet}

\end{timesheet}

\end{document}

So, if anyone have a solution in a completely different way for me, I would be deeply grateful.

Thanks in advance!

I don't understand the question. Do you really have a \row{} command in the data file, or only the comma separated values? Anyway, I would use an external scripting language (python, ruby..) to read that csv and generate the latex table. You can even use Lua and integrate it with latex, via lualatex. — JLDiaz, Oct 06 '15 at 07:43
@JLDiaz, you're right, i get the comma separated values, the \row{} was an example for that. Another scripting language is no solution for us and for the csv i have also a solution. But I'm searching for something WITHOUT csv data. I'd rather cut the values after the comma and put them into variables, like in the example, but I want to create automatically the needed number of rows in the longtable I also get from the external program, do you understand..?! — SamHoff, Oct 06 '15 at 07:58
@JLDiaz: I have answered that other question linked by the O.P. If the \row command is really this bad, it's perhaps necessary to use this approach, unfortunately — , Oct 06 '15 at 07:59
@JLDiaz: If you have csv data take a look into datatools package — , Oct 06 '15 at 08:02

JLDiaz · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-06T09:09:57.410

Not sure if I correctly understood your question. I guess you want to type this in your document:

{\huge Timesheet} \hfill

\begin{timesheet}
\row{Dienstag,Di,01.09.2015}{08:00,17:00,12:00,13:00}{{08,00},1}{Airplane Hangar}
\row{Mittwoch,Mi,02.09.2015}{08:30,17:30,12:00,13:00}{{08,00},1}{Spaceship Hangar}
\row{Donnerstag,Do,03.09.2015}{08:30,17:00,12:00,13:00}{{07,50},1}{Autocar Hangar}
\row{Freitag,Fr,04.09.2015}{08:15,17:15,12:00,13:00}{{08,00},1}{Airplane Hangar}
\end{timesheet}

and get this:

Of course you can also have all the \rows in an external file, and then \input it in your main document like this:

\begin{timesheet}
\input{data}
\end{timesheet}

Is this the goal? If so, the following macros can get the job done.

First, one macro which extract a list of comma-separated values into a list of comma-separated macros. You can call it like this: \ExtractData{first,second}{\foo,\bar}, and you'll get \foo containing first and \bar containing second. It is kind of a hack using pgffor to parse the comma-separated list:

\def\ExtractData#1#2{% #1 List of values, #2 list of macros
\def\ccc{i}%
\foreach \data in {#1} {% We create auxilar macros called \auxi, \auxii, \auxiii...
  \expandafter\xdef\csname aux\ccc\endcsname{\data}%
  \xdef\ccc{\ccc i}% 
  }%
\xdef\ccc{i}%
\foreach \macro in {#2} {% And then store them into the provided macros
  \expandafter\xdef\macro{\csname aux\ccc\endcsname}%
  \xdef\ccc{\ccc i}%
  }%
}

Now, using above macro, \row is easy to define:

\def\row#1#2#3#4{%
\ExtractData{#1}{\formday,\formdayshort,\formdate}%
\ExtractData{#2}{\formcome,\formgo,\formbreak,\formbreakgo}%
\ExtractData{#3}{\formhours,\formdays}%
\ExtractData{#4}{\formproject}%
 \FormDayShort{\formdayshort} & \FormDate{\formdate}       & \FormType{U} &
 \FormCome{\formcome}         & \FormGo{\formgo}           &
%\formBreak{\formbreak}       & \FormBreakGo{\formbreakgo} &
 \FormHours{\formhours}       & \FormDays{\formdays}       & \FormProject{\formproject}
 \tabularnewline
}

As you can see, we first extract the data from the row parameters and store it into appropiately (lowercase) named macros. Then we use those macros to generate a row for the table, making use of your (camelcase) macros to format each entry. Not sure why you defined those, though, but I decided to leave them.

The complete code (which produces the table pasted at the beginning) is then:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel} 
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{pgffor}

\def\ExtractData#1#2{% #1 List of values, #2 list of macros
\def\ccc{i}%
\foreach \data in {#1} {% We create auxilar macros called \auxi, \auxii, \auxiii...
  \expandafter\xdef\csname aux\ccc\endcsname{\data}%
  \xdef\ccc{\ccc i}% 
  }%
\xdef\ccc{i}%
\foreach \macro in {#2} {% And then store them into the provided macros
  \expandafter\xdef\macro{\csname aux\ccc\endcsname}%
  \xdef\ccc{\ccc i}%
  }%
}

\def\row#1#2#3#4{%
\ExtractData{#1}{\formday,\formdayshort,\formdate}%
\ExtractData{#2}{\formcome,\formgo,\formbreak,\formbreakgo}%
\ExtractData{#3}{\formhours,\formdays}%
\ExtractData{#4}{\formproject}%
 \FormDayShort{\formdayshort} & \FormDate{\formdate}       & \FormType{U} &
 \FormCome{\formcome}         & \FormGo{\formgo}           &
%\formBreak{\formbreak}       & \FormBreakGo{\formbreakgo} &
 \FormHours{\formhours}       & \FormDays{\formdays}       & \FormProject{\formproject}
 \tabularnewline
}

% Your original macros (I guess their purpose is to be able to change the formatting of the fields)
\newcommand*{\FormDay}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormDayShort}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormDate}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormType}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormCome}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormGo}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormBreak}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormBreakGo}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormHours}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormDays}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\FormProject}[1]{#1}

% Your original environment (whith the sample row deleted)
\newenvironment{timesheet}
{\begin{longtable} 
{@{}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.125\textwidth}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.1\textwidth}p{0.1\textwidth}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.075\textwidth}p{0.25\textwidth}}     
Day   & Date    & Type  & Come   & Go   & Hours   & Days    & Project   \tabularnewline[2ex]
\endhead
}
{
\hline 
\end{longtable}
}

% Example of usage
\begin{document}
{\huge Timesheet} \hfill

\begin{timesheet}
\row{Dienstag,Di,01.09.2015}{08:00,17:00,12:00,13:00}{{08,00},1}{Airplane Hangar}
\row{Mittwoch,Mi,02.09.2015}{08:30,17:30,12:00,13:00}{{08,00},1}{Spaceship Hangar}
\row{Donnerstag,Do,03.09.2015}{08:30,17:00,12:00,13:00}{{07,50},1}{Autocar Hangar}
\row{Freitag,Fr,04.09.2015}{08:15,17:15,12:00,13:00}{{08,00},1}{Airplane Hangar}
\end{timesheet}
\end{document}

Remark

Note that your comma-separated list of values cannot use the comma inside a string. You had a 08,00 value for "hours", and I had to escape it by putting braces around it. The program which generates those rows should do this too, or avoid the use of the comma in the strings.

yay, that's it! Thank you very much! :) This is exactly what I want.

Not sure why you defined those, though, but I decided to leave them.< I thought, this could be good approach.. ;-) Is there a way to do it shorter or easier?

Note that your comma-separated list of values cannot use the comma inside a string.< I thought so and maybe we can change it from comma to dot, but with the escape it works for now. — SamHoff, Oct 06 '15 at 09:40
What I meant with "Not sure why" is that you defined all those macros as simple "echoes" for their arguments, so I was not sure of their purpose. I guessed that eventually you'll use them to format differently each field (eg: date in italics, time in boldface, etc.) But perhaps this was not their purpose, and you were only trying to suggest some approach to parse the comma-separated value. If this is the case, all those CamelCase macros are not needed, and you can use directly my lowercase ones which hold the data to show. — JLDiaz, Oct 06 '15 at 09:46
Ah, okay, yes, I understand. It is entirely possible, that I have to format each field, so I will still use these macros. — SamHoff, Oct 06 '15 at 09:52
I have another question to this solution.
So, I have many rows and for better readability, I want to set '\rowcolor' for the saturdays and sundays.
I also ask this here: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/271764/if-condition-without-any-package , but maybe I have a better fortune here in this topic. — SamHoff, Oct 14 '15 at 10:21
@SamHoff Answered your other question at: http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/272938/12571 — JLDiaz, Oct 14 '15 at 11:10

How can I handle table record with many parameters without CSV?

1 Answers1

Remark

Linked