Quick Vim tip: convert piped table to pandoc/RST/Emacs grid table

Inspired by a snippet by Conner McDaniel, I added a little snippet to my .vimrc that can convert a piped table to a grid table used by pandoc/RST/Emacs.

It goes from this:

Fruit | Price | Advantages         
Bananas | $1.34 | - built-in wrapper     
Oranges | $2.10 | - cures scurvy           

To this:

+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Fruit         | Price         | Advantages         |
+===============+===============+====================+
| Bananas       | $1.34         | - built-in wrapper |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Oranges       | $2.10         | - cures scurvy     |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+

Add this to your .vimrcfile:

function! s:tablePandoc() range
    exe "'<,'>Tabularize /|"
    let hsepline= substitute(getline("."),'[^|]','-','g')
    exe "norm! o" .  hsepline
    exe "'<,'>s/-|/ |/g"
    exe "'<,'>s/|-/| /g"
    exe "'<,'>s/^| \|\s*|$\||//g"
    exe "'<,'>!pandoc -f markdown -t rst"
endfunction
command! -range=% TablePandoc :call <SID>tablePandoc()

Now, make a visual selection and type :TablePandoc. It uses tabular.vim to align the pipe characters. Example:

If you have additional tips for using Pandoc from Vim, please let me know.

P.S.: This post was copied from my old blog, I’ll likely won’t edit it any more.