[Orgmode] [Babel] Table collapsed as one big line, when passed to a shell script

[Sébastien Vauban]

#+TITLE:     Line breaks preservation
#+DATE:      2010-11-23
#+LANGUAGE:  en_US

* Abstract

Table is seen as being *one big line*, when echo'ing all of its rows.

* Passing var via Babel

I want to *add a column* to the following table.

#+results: table-message
| This is line 1 of the message.        |
| This is line 2 of the message.        |
| This is the last line of the message. |

Its value should be dependant on a *regexp matching* the *current row* (for
example, if 1 is detected in the original column, then write "A" in the new
one, "B" if 2 is read, "C" if 3 is read, etc.).

Hence, I'm thinking using AWK as an easy solution.

    #+begin_src note
    I'm open to other ideas on how I could do this as easily. Just throw me
    ideas, if you have some.
    #+end_src

*First* trial: add a column whose cell contents will be *fixed* (here, equal
to =New col=).

#+srcname: add-col
#+begin_src sh :var data=table-message :results output :exports both
echo $data | awk '// {print "| New col | " $0 " |";}'
#+end_src

#+results: add-col
: | New col | This is line 1 of the message. This is line 2 of the message. 
This is the last line of the message. |

I was expecting 3 lines, not 1...

* Replacing Babel expansion of the variable

Here, I made a few changes:

- added option =-n= to cat, to make him number the lines

- added explicit =[BEGINOFLINE]= and =[ENDOFLINE]= markers to see where the
  lines begin and end

#+srcname: add-col-expanded
#+begin_src sh :results output :exports both
data=$(cat -n <<BABEL_TABLE
This is line 1 of the message.
This is line 2 of the message.
This is the last line of the message.
BABEL_TABLE
)
echo $data | awk '// {print "[BEGINOFLINE]| New col | " $0 " |[ENDOFLINE]";}'
#+end_src

#+results: add-col-expanded
: [BEGINOFLINE]| New col | 1 This is line 1 of the message. 2 This is line 2 of 
the message. 3 This is the last line of the message. |[ENDOFLINE]

Still the same, though we observe that =cat= sees 3 lines, but the =echo= does
not seem to preserve the line breaks, when executed.

* Questions

- Do you have the same problems on your machine?
- Is it due to Cygwin Bash on Windows (my case)?
- Any idea on what could cause this, or on any workaround?

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sébastien Vauban