I’ve attempted the following Easy Table:

But I’ve had to add quotation marks into the second column, otherwise it assumes the leading numerals are width commands, and produces this:

However, the following table has leading numerals in both columns, yet neither of them are interpreted as width commands:
Can anyone explain what is going on, why the system misinterprets numerals in one table but not the other, and how I can put numerals in my columns without the table misinterpreting them as width commands?

Edit: In the process of posting this query, I've discovered that replacing the quotation marks with spaces gives the desired result:
But it still doesn't explain why the small table is not misinterpreted.

Notice that in the final column of your table, the leading numerals do not get interpreted as width commands.  At a guess (and I'm no expert) I'd say that perhaps the difference is the space between the numerals and the following characters.

EDIT2: Note that it is grabbing everything from the bar to the first space and seeing if it is a command. If it is a valid command or series of commands, it gets interpreted. If it isn't, then it doesn't.


EDIT: I see your edit figured the same thing out. It is just the way the interpreter works. If you have a command smushed up against the bar, it is going to read it as a command.

Add a space?


This message was last edited by the user at 16:42, Wed 08 Aug 2018.

That exactly what the help said about easy table:
/help/content.cgi?t=help&page=easytable



And I believe that the third example isn't affected because the parser can not interpreted in any meaningful way (for the parser).

Right. So it's all about spaces.

It interprets numbers "immediately after the pipe and followed by a space" as a command.

So to avoid that, I either need a space before the number, or no space after it.

Thanks folks. Not immediately obvious, but I can work with that. :)