Build a standalone table

Build and write a table without a document around it — the table DSL works on its own, in the spirit of JakeWharton/picnic. This page shows both row forms, the headerless case, and how to embed the same builder in a document.

Prerequisites: a Kotlin project with markup-table on the classpath, plus a writer module such as markup-asciidoc-writer for output.

1. Add the dependencies

dependencies {
    implementation("org.markup-poet:markup-table:0.2.0")
    implementation("org.markup-poet:markup-asciidoc-writer:0.2.0")
}

markup-table contains only the model and DSL and has zero dependencies; the writer module brings kotlinx-io and kotlinx-coroutines. See Modules and coordinates.

2. Build a table with a header

row(vararg cells) and row { cell(…) } are interchangeable — use the vararg form for literal cells and the block form when cells are computed in a loop:

import org.markup.poet.dsl.table.table
import org.markup.poet.dsl.write.asciidoc.toAsciidoc

val t = table {
    header {
        cell("col 1")
        cell("col 2")
    }
    row("Hello", "World")   // vararg form
    row {                   // block form
        cell("Hola")
        cell("Mundo")
    }
}

println(t.toAsciidoc())

A table has at most one header; a later header { } call replaces it.

The toAsciidoc() output for the header case:

|===
|col 1|col 2

| Hello
| World
|===

3. Handle the headerless case

Without a header, the writer synthesizes a cols attribute from the first row’s cell count, so AsciiDoc processors do not mistake the first row for a header:

val t = table {
    row("a", "b")
    row("c", "d")
}

[cols="1,1"]
|===
| a
| b

| c
| d
|===

4. Embed the same builder in a document

Inside a document, section { table(title, id) { … } } accepts the identical builder body and adds an id and title block:

import org.markup.poet.dsl.document.article
import org.markup.poet.dsl.write.asciidoc.toAsciidoc

val doc = article("Report") {
    section("Data") {
        table("Greetings", id = "greetings") {
            header {
                cell("col 1")
                cell("col 2")
            }
            row("Hello", "World")
        }
    }
}

For the full mapping of table features to AsciiDoc syntax, see AsciiDoc mapping.