Module talk:Tabular data

@Mxn: this is great! Now we just need easier ways to edit tables, like Vera's work. Let me try this with this data. – SJ + 12:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sj: I didn't realize it during the hackathon, but phab:T251759 is already well underway. Can't wait to see it live! – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 19:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

hot dog! thanks for the link :) and the illustrative attempt here too, good practice to parse. – SJ + 00:26, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple fields

@Mxn: what would be nice (and significantly help performance in some cases) is the ability to get multiple fields. Like how Module:Covid19Data is called on User:EProdromou (WMF)/COVID-19 case data as {{#invoke:Covid19Data|regionTable|CA|QC|<tr><td> %s</td><td> %s</td><td> %s</td><td> %s</td></tr>}}.

For example:

{{#invoke:Tabular data|lookup
|search_column=model
|search_value=XYZ
|output_column=brand,year
|format=<li> The XYZ was made by [[%s]] and released in [[%s]].
|Example.tab}}

Not sure how difficult this would be. - Alexis Jazz 06:11, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexis Jazz: Thanks for the idea! It would certainly be feasible, but if efficiency or tidiness is the primary consideration, then I think it would be even better to refine {{#invoke:Tabular data|wikitable}} or {{Json2table}} to allow for the desired format on each row or create a separate function that outputs the whole table in list form. Or were you thinking of a use case where each row would come from a different Commons data table? – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 10:19, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Mxn: I was actually thinking of a case where two (or more) fields from the same row are needed. A template like this one has to do two lookups for the same row, only to return a different field each time. This increases the page preview/rendering time and load on the Wikimedia servers. - Alexis Jazz 03:11, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexis Jazz:

Done, although I'd expect that large or complex tables or lists would be better served by a custom Lua function that interacts with the tabular data directly, since that also affords more control over formatting and allows lookups to be reused. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 05:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]