verbatim text in ConTeXt tables

Question

I want to create a table for a few blocks of source code. In LaTeX, I would do

\hline 
\begin{lstlisting}
abc;
def;
\end{lstlisting}
\tabularnewline

Is there a way to accomplish something like this in ConTeXt? I have tried \starttyping and \stoptyping within table cells, but the file fails to compile if I do that.

The reason I would like to use tables is that I could then use \placetable for floats, and also that I would have a clean way of referring to it in other parts of the document.

Answer 1

Use buffers. Store the content in a buffer using

\startbuffer[...] 
  ...
\stopbuffer

and retrieve it using \typebuffer. Here is a simple example with tables.

\startsetups table:setup
  \setupTABLE[each][each][frame=off]
  \setupTABLE[row][first][style=bold,color=white,background=color,backgroundcolor=black]
  \setupTABLE[row][last][bottomframe=on, framethickness=3bp]
\stopsetups
\starttext

\startbuffer[CPP]
#include <iostream.h>

void main()
{
  cout << "Hello World\n";
}
\stopbuffer

\startbuffer[ruby]
puts "Hello World"
\stopbuffer

\startTABLE[setups=table:setup]
  \NC C++                \NC Ruby              \NC \NR
  \NC \typebuffer[CPP]   \NC \typebuffer[ruby]  \NC \NR
\stopTABLE
\stoptext

which gives

Answer 2

The first thing: Verbatin text in tables work:

\starttext

\starttabulate
    \NC Foo        \NC Bar \NC\AR
    \NC \type{Foo} \NC Bar \NC\AR
\stoptabulate

\bTABLE
    \bTR
        \bTD Foo \eTD
        \bTD Bar \eTD
    \eTR
    \bTR
        \bTD Foo        \eTD
        \bTD \type{Bar} \eTD
    \eTR
\eTABLE

\stoptext

Result:

The second thing is that you don't need a table to refer to your code. You can create your own floating type. However even that doesn't have to float. The following code creates a custom floating evironment, not perfect, but hopefully enough to get you started.

\definefloat [code] [codes]

\starttext

\input knuth

As illustrated in \in{code}[code:example].

\startplacecode [title=Some example code., reference=code:example]
    \starttyping
        int main(){
            return 0;
        }
    \stoptyping
\stopplacecode

\stoptext

It looks like this: