# Use arithmetic of counters inside \cline

I have a custom counter \myCounter set to, say 3. I need to produce such a table:

The following code does not work:

\documentclass{article}

\newcounter{myCounter}
\setcounter{myCounter}{3}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{cl*{\value{myCounter}{c}c}}
& \multicolumn{\value{myCounter}}{c}
{agglutinate} & \\\cline{2-\value{myCounter+1}} % Here is the naive part
init & content1 & content2 & content3 & end \\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}


How should I perform counter arithmetics within \cline?

• Why do you show only a snippet instead of a full example people could compile directly? – Ulrike Fischer Feb 4 '16 at 16:04
• Usually I would say \numexpr but with a fixed number of & this is not really useful, is it? – user31729 Feb 4 '16 at 16:06
• @UlrikeFischer I do it in order to keep the question clear. Also because the snippet I show does not compile anyway. BTW I wished there was a way to compile LaTeX code inside the stack interface, just like you can get formulae within  in Maths SE. This way I would not have to insert a screenshot of my table. Is this possible? – iago-lito Feb 4 '16 at 16:09
• It doesn't make the question clearer, it is simply a nuisance that I have to type \newcounter, \setcounter, \documentclass etc to try out a solution. And if you had to try out your example first you perhaps would have realized that there are brace errors beside the \cline-problem. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 4 '16 at 16:13
• @UlrikeFischer You're right. came from a good intention though. – iago-lito Feb 4 '16 at 16:17

Calculations can be done with \numexpr number1 operator number2, but in this case, the example is a little bit useless, since the number of & is fixed to use 3 columns (in between) anyway!

\documentclass{article}

\newcounter{myCounter}

\setcounter{myCounter}{3}
\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{cl*{\value{myCounter}}{c}c}
& \multicolumn{\value{myCounter}}{c}{agglutinate} & \tabularnewline
\cline{2-{\numexpr\value{myCounter}+1}}
init & content1 & content2 & content3 & end \\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}


• This is what I was looking for! Consider this as "half-useful". When I add a section to my document, I have to manually add a & and a contentN into the tabular environment, but the rest of the table automatically scales up ;) Cheers! – iago-lito Feb 4 '16 at 16:13
• @Iago-lito: If contentX` would be computable the whole approach would be much more usable ;-) – user31729 Feb 4 '16 at 16:19
• Yupe. Unfortunately it is not. Even though I would love my computer to write this article for me while I'm having a chocolate. Hey, machines can't do everything, can they? ;) – iago-lito Feb 4 '16 at 16:21
• @Iago-lito: Not yet :D – user31729 Feb 4 '16 at 16:22