tabular environment that is similar to html

Question

How can I simulate a HTML table? That is: I want to give the table a maximum width (for example \textwidth) and the table should automatically distribute the necessary space according to the contents of each cell.

So something structured like this:

<table border="1">
  <tr>
    <td>foo</td><td>this is a longer text<br /> with a few lines that might be even without<br/> sense</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>bar</td><td>not so long</td>
  </tr>
</table>

should result in something similar to that:

Answer 1

@StephanLehmke gave me the hint:

\documentclass[paper=a4]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tabu}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabu}spread 0pt{|X[-1]|X|}
\hline
foo & this is a longer text\par with a few lines that might be even without\par sense \\
bar & not so long \\
\hline
\end{tabu}

\end{document}

which gives:

Answer 2

Simulating HTML is the algorithm used by the tabulary package (named because y comes after x) by David Carlisle:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabulary}{0.4\linewidth}{|LL|}
   foo & this is a longer text\newline
         with a few lines that might be even without\newline
         sense\\
   bar & not so long
\end{tabulary}
\end{document}

The vertical lines are just there to show the extent of the box. I should use this package more often; it looks like it does a good job.

Answer 3

You can obtain this also with the tabularx package, but look better without vertical rules and the horizontal rules of booktabs package.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tabularx,booktabs}
\begin{document}
\noindent\begin{tabularx}{.4\linewidth}{lX}
\toprule
foo & this is a longer text\par
with a few lines that might be even without\par
sense \\
\midrule
bar & not so long \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{document}