table

A Word content command that iterates through all items of a Collection and produces a copy of all of a table's pre-existing non-header rows, contents included, for every item in the Collection. Any Word content commands in content controls within the rows or around them are also copied and evaluated on each round of the iteration, with one of the items of the Collection as a variable in the context for these commands to make use of. This command should be placed into a content control around a table.

If the table contains header rows, those rows are not multiplied during the iteration, but any Word content commands within these rows are evaluated before the iteration process occurs. If the footerRows attribute is used to define footer rows, these are treated in the same way except that the evaluation of their content commands occurs after the iteration process.

This command produces a local variable context for the Word content commands evaluated within the iteration rounds. This local context's primary feature is that it contains one of the Collection's items for the other content commands to access. A new context is created at the start of every round of the iteration process and then terminated at the end of the round.

This attribute has a priority of 90.

Syntax:

table(value,var,varStatus,footerRows,roundTest)

With required attributes only:

table(value,var)

Attributes

#1 - value

Required

Value type

EL-evaluated

Yes

Collection, Map, Data Item

Yes

This attribute defines the container whose contents the command will iterate through. While this container is primarily expected to be a Collection, two other types of values are also accepted.

The three types are handled in the following ways:

If the value is a Collection, the table iterates through the items in it in their proper order.
If the value is a Map, the table iterates through its entries. The item of every round is therefore a Map entry that allows both the key and the value to be accessed. Note that the order in which the entries appear is, in most cases, not consistent and random.
If the value is a Data Item, the table performs just one loop round, with the Data Item being the item of the round.

If the value is either an empty Collection or an empty Map, the entire table will be removed.

#2 - var
Required	Value type	EL-evaluated
Yes	String	No
The value of this attribute defines the name of the local context variable that holds the current item of the loop.

#3 - varStatus

Required

Value type

EL-evaluated

No

String

No

Defines the name of the variable that holds a Loop Status value. Loop Status has the properties count, first, last, and index. A new value is generated for every iteration of the loop.

Property count is the number of iterations starting from 1.
The property index is the same as the count with the difference that it starts from 0.
Property first is a Boolean true during the first round of the loop. Note that if roundTest causes the first item of the iteration to be skipped, this will never be true.
Property last is a Boolean true during the last round of the loop. Note that if roundTest causes the last item of the iteration to be skipped, this will never be true.

#4 - footerRows

Required

Value type

EL-evaluated

No

Number, String

Yes

Defines the amnumberf rows in the original table within the host content control that are treated as footer rows. A footer row is treated the same as a header row - it will not be multiplied during the iteration, but any content commands within the row are evaluated. The resolved value, which may be a Number or a String with a number character, defines how many rows, counted from the bottom, become footer rows.

If undefined, no rows are treated as footer rows.

#5 - roundTest

Required

Value type

EL-evaluated

No

Boolean

Yes

This attribute can be used to define a condition for skipping certain iteration rounds. This attribute's expression is evaluated at the start of every round and if it doesn't resolve into true, the current item and loop round is skipped, resulting in no copy of the content being produced.

If undefined, no iteration rounds are skipped.

Examples

The table command works in a very similar manner to repeat but is specialized in tables with its header and footer row features. This command also allows multiple rows per iteration round to be multiplied, as a single content control cannot be wrapped around multiple table rows and therefore cannot be multiplied like that with repeat. The following example could be used to create a table of products, with one footer row.

CODE

table(products,product,,1)

While the table is intended to be the replacement of repeat for tables, these two can also be used together to produce a group of dynamic tables based on the repeat's Collection as repeat has higher priority than the table. The following uses repeat to produce a separate product table for every product group.

CODE

repeat(productGroups,group) table(group.products,product,,1)

Use the fifth attribute roundTest to skip over iteration rounds. Note that it is possible to use the Loop Status value created through the third attribute varStatus or the current item of the iteration in roundTest's expression. The following example would produce the product table, but without any products that have not been released yet.

CODE

table(products,product,status,1,product.releaseDate != null)