Table with “curly” break

Question

I searched a lot but I wasn't able to find a package that can really fit my needs. I want to achieve something like the “Page Table” in this image:

A regular table but with some “curly breaks” that gave the idea of a continuation and possibly a table under the first one whit a specular break line that continue to extend my list.

I'm also looking for two other techniques: I want to describe the content of some cells (maybe with arrows or some other references) and I want to highlight an entire block of the table (maybe with colors or some background texture like a plant or a house) giving me the ability of writing some legenda.

Answer 1

Take a look at bytefield package, http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/bytefield. It has a lot of stuff for diagrams like yours. In particular, I'd use its \skippedwords macro instead of your curly bottom: it seems to be a more usual way to show indefinite amount of data

Answer 2

Here's an attempt using PGF/TikZ:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,positioning,shapes.multipart}

% Command to draw a colored square
\newcommand\Cbox[1]{\color{#1}\rule{6pt}{6pt}}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[
  drect/.style={rectangle split, rectangle split parts=#1, draw},
  ndrect/.style={rectangle split, rectangle split parts=#1}
]

% the nodes
\node[draw] (a) {02FE};
\node[drect=2, rectangle split horizontal,right=of a] (b) {02\nodepart{two}FE};
\node[drect=2, rectangle split horizontal,right=of b] (c) {01A0\nodepart{two}FE};
\node[drect=4,rectangle split part fill={red!60,blue!60,olive!60,magenta!60},below right=of a] (d)
  {0020\nodepart{two}001A\nodepart{three}01A0\nodepart{four}0320};
\node[ndrect=4,left=0 of d] (e)
  {0\nodepart{two}1\nodepart{three}2\nodepart{four}3};

% the curly part
\draw (d.south west) -- ++(0,-0.2) -- ($(d.south west)+(0,-0.2)$) .. controls ($(d.south)+(-0.3,-0.05)$) .. ($(d.south)+(0,-0.2)$) .. controls ($(d.south)+(0.3,-0.4)$) .. ($(d.south east)+(0,-0.3)$) -- (d.south east);

% the arrows
\draw[->] (a) -- (b);
\draw[->] (b.two north) -- ++(0,0.3) -|  (c.two north);
\draw[->] (b.one south) -- ++(0,-0.5) -- ++(-1.5,0) |- ($(d.three)+(-0.6,0.1)$);
\draw[->] (d.three east) -| (c.one south);

% text nodes
\node[align=center,above= 0.5pt of a, font=\footnotesize] {logical \\address};
\node[align=center,below= 3pt of c.two,xshift=6pt, font=\footnotesize] {physical \\address};
\node[align=center,below= 13pt of d, font=\footnotesize] {Page Table};

% the legend
\node[right=of c,yshift=-1cm] {
  \fbox{\begin{tabular}{cp{2.7cm}}
    \Cbox{red!60} & Some description \\
    \Cbox{blue!60} & Some description \\
    \Cbox{olive!60} & Some description \\
    \Cbox{magenta!60} & Some description \\
  \end{tabular}}
};

\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

The curly line was drawn using the .. controls .. feature (see Section 14.3 The Curve-To Operation of the pgfmanual). Nodes were built with the shapes.multipart library (see Section 48.6 Shapes with Multiple Text Parts of the pgfmanual).