Table Syntax Details

The Table syntax is both flexible and strict.

Flexible

A table need not have ANY rows of data

[planets]
name         mass distance moons index mnemonic
string    float64  float64   int   int string

Some other data formats require at least one row of data to divine the data type of each column. That’s not necessary here, because all column types are specified explicitly. Parsing is more tolerant in some cases, such as a float written without a decimal point.

A table need not have ANY columns

[planets]

The table name without a table body may look lonely, but when instantiated in a program it will create a new *gotables.Table object (with the name planets in this case) ready for you to append columns and rows.

See example of how to instantiate a *gotables.Table table syntax from a string

Strict

A table must have BOTH column names AND column types or NEITHER

You cannot have a column name without a column type, or a column type without a column name.

The number of column names, column types and data cells must match exactly.

It is an error to have an uneven number of column names, column types or row cells.

A table is terminated by a blank line or end of input: end of string, end of file.

• At least one blank line is needed between the end of one table and the beginning of the next.
• End of file is also considered end of table. No need to have an extra blank line at the end.
• End of string is also considered end of table. No need to have an extra blank line at the end.