## 5.7 Table Markup

There are three general-purpose table environments defined which should be used whenever possible. These environments are defined to provide tables of specific widths and some convenience for formatting. These environments are not meant to be general replacements for the standard LATEX table environments, but can be used for an advantage when the documents are processed using the tools for Python documentation processing. In particular, the generated HTML looks good! There is also an advantage for the eventual conversion of the documentation to SGML (see section 8, ``Future Directions'').

Each environment is named `\tablecols`, where cols is the number of columns in the table specified in lower-case Roman numerals. Within each of these environments, an additional macro, `\linecols`, is defined, where cols matches the cols value of the corresponding table environment. These are supported for cols values of `ii`, `iii`, and `iv`. These environments are all built on top of the `\tabular` environment.

Note that all tables in the standard Python documentation use vertical lines between columns, and this must be specified in the markup for each table. A general border around the outside of the table is not used, but would be the responsibility of the processor.

`\begin{tableii}` `{`colspec`}``{`col1font`}``{`heading1`}``{`heading2`}`
`\end{tableii}`
  Create a two-column table using the LATEX column specifier colspec. The column specifier should indicate vertical bars between columns as appropriate for the specific table, but should not specify vertical bars on the outside of the table (that is considered a stylesheet issue). The col1font parameter is used as a stylistic treatment of the first column of the table: the first column is presented as `\col1font{column1}`. To avoid treating the first column specially, col1font may be "`textrm`". The column headings are taken from the values heading1 and heading2.

`\lineii` `{`column1`}``{`column2`}`
  Create a single table row within a `\tableii` environment. The text for the first column will be generated by applying the macro named by the col1font value when the `\tableii` was opened.

`\begin{tableiii}` `{`colspec`}``{`col1font`}``{`heading1`}``{`heading2`}``{`heading3`}`
`\end{tableiii}`
  Like the `\tableii` environment, but with a third column. The heading for the third column is given by heading3.

`\lineiii` `{`column1`}``{`column2`}``{`column3`}`
  Like the `\lineii` macro, but with a third column. The text for the third column is given by column3.

`\begin{tableiv}` `{`colspec`}``{`col1font`}``{`heading1`}``{`heading2`}``{`heading3`}``{`heading4`}`
`\end{tableiv}`
  Like the `\tableiii` environment, but with a fourth column. The heading for the fourth column is given by heading4.

`\lineiv` `{`column1`}``{`column2`}``{`column3`}``{`column4`}`
  Like the `\lineiii` macro, but with a fourth column. The text for the fourth column is given by column4.

An additional table-like environment is `\synopsistable`. The table generated by this environment contains two columns, and each row is defined by an alternate definition of `\modulesynopsis`. This environment is not normally used by authors, but is created by the `\localmoduletable` macro.