Extended table in LaTeX with multi-row cells

Question

I am trying to achieve something similar in LaTeX: http://sorenhaagerup.dk/files/table-sample.pdf (sample made in OpenOffice.org)

The most important part is the multi-line verbal medium inside the cell. Is this even possible?

I will be very grateful for any answers, as this pretty much bugs me.

Answer 1

I looked at your table and redid its first part - the "var" part. Since latex building tables are not my specialty, the code looks pretty dirty but does the job. Relevant packages multirow- to achieve nested tables - and verbatimto get the required verbatim environment. As you will see, I had to use an additional minipagesdescriptor for the correct placement of the shorthand environment. You can comment on them to see the difference. In addition, I started the table with the following row

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|p{8cm}|}

otherwise, if you do not use p-aragraph colums for the last column, you may get some errors using the specified environments inside the columns.

latex-wikibooks, .

.tex:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\setlength{\textwidth}{20.0cm}

\usepackage{verbatim} 
\usepackage{multirow} 


\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|p{8cm}|}
  \hline
  Element & Type & Case & Template\\ \hline
  \multirow{4}{*}{} Var & id & escaping or diff. level & 
  \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
\begin{verbatim}
return [offset](\%ebp)
\end{verbatim} 
  \end{minipage} 
\\ \cline{3-4}
  &  & else &
  \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
\begin{verbatim}
return TEMP(n)
\end{verbatim} 
  \end{minipage} \\ \cline{2-4}
  & index & - &
  \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
\begin{verbatim}
a = A_var(var)
movl a, t1
// do runtimecheck 5
t2 = A_exp(exp)
movl t2, t3
addl $1, t3
return (t1, t3, 4)
\end{verbatim} 
  \end{minipage} \\ \cline{2-4}
  & field & - &
  \begin{minipage}[t]{\linewidth}
\begin{verbatim}
a = A_var(var)
movl a, t1 // hvis a ikke er temp 
// do runtimecheck 5
movl [offset], t3
return (t1, t3, 4)
\end{verbatim} 
  \end{minipage}
  \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}