> I'll try to follow up Werner's hint later. Meanwhile, looking for > something "clever", I seem to have found that the escape "\R'...'" > (\R'NAME VAL' sets register named NAME to value VAL) does not work > in a table:
You've missed the following feature of tbl: A data item consisting only of `\Rx' (`x' any character) is replaced by repetitions of character `x' as wide as the column (not joining its neighbours). If you use the \E escape character to hide `\R', you get the right result, e.g. .TS tab(#); |l2 | l2 | l2 | l |. _ Row 1, Col 1#Row 1, Col 2#Row 1, Col 3#\ER'POS1 \n[nl]'Row 1, Col 4 Row 2, Col 1#Row 2, Col 2#Row 2, Col 3#\ER'POS2 \n[nl]'Row 2, Col 4 .TE .tm POS1 == \n[POS1] .tm POS2 == \n[POS2] => POS1 == 0 POS2 == 14000 Werner