\usepackage{glossaries} with 3 columns

Question

I need to have extra column in the glossary.

My application is list of symbols with

1. symbol
2. description
3. units

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{glossaries}


\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{mwe}{name=MWE, description={Minimum Working Example}}

% the previous line should have some extra field, or i could define my own command.
% Something that would envolve description={ {some text} && {some unit}}

\begin{document}

\printglossaries

\clearpage

This is the call to the \Gls{mwe}

\end{document}

Update: for what it is worth if you are running ubuntu < 12.04, you need to update your packages. (refer to here)

Answer 1

Glossary entries can have up to six user fields. Let's use user1 for units, so the entries will be constructed as

\newglossaryentry{A}{%
name={foo},%
description={bar},%
user1={cm}%
}

Then we need a new style that will make use of the new field. How to define a new style is described in the manual, the important thing to know is that the user fields can be accessed via \glsentryuseri{##1}. To do a style based on longtable, we do (mostly copied from the manual):

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{glossaries}
\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{A}{%
name={foo},%
description={bar},%
user1={cm}%
}

\newglossaryentry{B}{%
name={AAPL},%
description={apples},%
user1={box}%
}

\newglossaryentry{C}{%
name={BTR},%
description={books to read},%
user1={LoC}%
}

\newglossaryentry{D}{%
name={BTRTIO},%
description={books to read that I own},%
user1={shelf},%
parent={C}
}

\newglossarystyle{aiaostyle}{%
% put the glossary in a longtable environment:
\renewenvironment{theglossary}%
 {\begin{longtable}{lp{\glsdescwidth}cp{\glspagelistwidth}}}%
 {\end{longtable}}%
% Set the table’s header: title row
\renewcommand*{\glossaryheader}{%
 \bfseries Term & \bfseries Description & 
 \bfseries Units & \bfseries Page List
 \\\endhead}%
% No table header:
\renewcommand*{\glossaryheader}{}%
% No heading between groups:
 \renewcommand*{\glsgroupheading}[1]{}%
% Main (level 0) entries displayed in a row optionally numbered:
 \renewcommand*{\glossaryentryfield}[5]{%
    \glstarget{##1}{##2}% Name
    & ##3% Description
    & \glsentryuseri{##1}% Units
    & ##5% Page list
    \\% end of row
 }%
% Similarly for sub-entries (no sub-entry numbers):
\renewcommand*{\glossarysubentryfield}[6]{%
    % ignoring first argument (sub-level)
    \glstarget{##2}{##3}% Name
    & ##4% Description
    & \glsentryuseri{##2}% Units
    & ##6% Page list
    \\% end of row
 }%
% Nothing between groups:
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}%
}

\begin{document}
\null
\glsaddall

\glossarystyle{aiaostyle}
\setlength{\glsdescwidth}{0.5\textwidth}
\setlength{\glspagelistwidth}{0.1\textwidth}
\printglossary

\end{document}

The glossary will then be a longtable with four columns, where the third, a c column, will contain the content of the user1 field.