org-mode/org-babel-ded-worg.org

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#+TAGS:       Write(w) Update(u) Fix(f) Check(c) 
#+TITLE:      org-babel: execution of source code blocks in org-mode
#+AUTHOR:     Dan Davison
#+EMAIL:      davison at stats dot ox dot ac dot uk
#+LANGUAGE:   en
#+CATEGORY:   worg

* Introduction
  Org-babel provides the following modifications to [[http://orgmode.org/manual/Literal-examples.html][the existing
  support]] for blocks of source code examples in the org-mode core.
  1. source code execution
  2. arguments to source code blocks
  
* Basic org-babel functionality
*** Source code execution
    For interpreted languages such as shell, python, R, etc, org-babel
    allows source blocks to be executed: the code is passed to the
    interpreter and you have control over what is done with the
    results of excecution. E.g. place point anywhere in the following
    block and use C-c C-c to run the code:

#+begin_src python :results output
import time
x = 4
print("hello\n")
#print time.ctime()
print [5, 10]
#+end_src

#+resname:
: hello
: 510

#+begin_src R :results value
x = 4
date()
c(5, 10)
#+end_src

#+resname:
|  5 |
| 10 |











*** What happens to the results?
    Org-babel provides two fundamentally different modes for capturing
    the results of code evaluation, specified by the :results header
    argument:
**** :results value
     This means that the 'result' of code evaluation is defined to be
     the *value* of the last statement in the block. Thus with this
     setting, one can view the code block as a function with a return
     value. And not only can one view it that way, but you can
     actually use the return value of one source block as input for
     another (see later). This setting is the default.
**** :results output
     With this setting, org-babel captures all the text output of the
     code block and places it in the org buffer. One can think of this
     as a 'scripting' mode: the code block contains a series of
     commands, and you get the output of all the commands. Unlike in
     the 'functional' mode specified by =:results value=, the code
     block has no return value. (This mode will be familiar to Sweave
     users).
**** Additional :results settings
     

     
*** Arguments to source code blocks
    In addition to evaluation of code blocks, org-babel allows them to
    be parameterised (i.e. have arguments). Thus source code blocks
    now have the status of *functions*.

    
*** Internals
    For those interested in hacking org-babel, it's worth going
    through what actually happened there:
***** org-babel-execute-src
      1. parses source block info (recognises language, looks for
	 arguments (there aren't any))
      2. calls
***** org-babel-execute:LANG
      1. resolves referenced variables (there aren't any)
      2. assigns any referenced variables and evaluates body
***** org-babel-LANG-evaluate
      Returns a string corresponding to either output or value of block.

#+resname:
: Sun Jul  5 14:17:31 EDT 2009


#+begin_src R :results output
    date()
#+end_src

#+resname:
: Sun Jul  5 14:00:20 2009


#+begin_src python
    import time
    time.ctime()
#+end_src
    
#+resname:
: Sun Jul  5 14:13:07 2009