Defining Constant Values from Remote Org-Table Cell for Use in #+TBLFM:
Initial Setup
Create Named Table, e.g. other-table-name
#+NAME: other-table-name
| S | M | T | W | H | F | S |
|---+---+---+---+---+---+---|
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
Method 1 - Dynamically Define #+CONSTANTS: using SRC Block Results
In this example, the programming language used is elisp but org-mode can be configured to run source blocks in over 30 programming languages so pick another language you like, if you don't don't want to use elisp.
The only requirements for SRC block are:
SRC block #+RESULTS: must provide valid #+CONSTANTS: declaration, e.g. #+CONSTANTS: constantname=constantvalue- Add
:results drawer or :results raw headers to SRC block so that org-mode can interpret the #+RESULTS: as org syntax.
- The constant value must be fetched from cell in named table, e.g.
other-table-name
In this specific example, I used the syntax for indexing variable values, i.e. constant-value=other-table-name[2,4], to fetch constant value from a specific cell in table.
#+NAME: define-constant-with-src-block
#+BEGIN_SRC elisp :var constant-name="HOURS" :var constant-value=other-table-name[2,4] :results drawer
(format "#+CONSTANTS: %s=%s" constant-name constant-value)
#+END_SRC
#+RESULTS: define-constant-with-src-block
:results:
#+CONSTANTS: HOURS=4
:end:
#+name: example-table-method-1
| Value of $HOURS from CONSTANTS generated by SRC Block | 4 |
#+TBLFM: @1$2=$HOURS
Method 2 - Use org-table Advanced features syntax to create local table constant with value fetched using remote(other-table-name, @>$5)
#+name: example-table-method-2
| # | Value of $hours fetched from other-table-name | 4 |
| $ | | hours=4 |
#+TBLFM: @1$3=$hours::@2$3='(format "hours=%s" remote(other-table-name, @>$5))
Thank you for asking your question!
The code in this answer was validated using the following:
emacs version: GNU Emacs 27.1
org-mode version: 9.3.7
#+CONSTANTS, it's not particularly well-known but it is an ancient feature: it is in release 5.01 (from 2008) and possibly in earlier releases too, when Org mode consisted of a single org.el file! Remote refs are not much younger: they were in 6.19a from early 2009.#+CONSTANTS:line? These keywords are read only when the file is opened, they are parsed at that point to initialize various structures (in the#+CONSTANTScase, that is the listorg-table-formula-constants) and then not looked at again until you pressC-c C-con the keyword line or the buffer is reverted from the underlying file. They are not meant to be the kind of scratchpad that you seem to want. Why can't you use the remote value directly?