org-mode table-formula and code-blocks: function parameter is cut off on whitespace

Question

In Org-mode working with 'src' code blocks and table formulas together, org-mode cuts of the cell strings at the first whitespace character.

I.e.: having a cell with Hello World the 'src' code block only receives Hello.

Following example:

This shows the weird result.

#+NAME: bugornot-src
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :var x='()
(mapconcat 'prin1-to-string x "")
#+END_SRC

#+TBLNAME: bugornot-tbl
| Test | Hello World | Foo | TestHelloFoo |
|      |             |     | TestHelloFoo |
#+TBLFM: @1$4='(org-sbe bugornot-src (x @1$1..@1$3))
#+TBLFM: @2$4='(org-sbe bugornot-src (x @1$1 @1$2 @1$3))

But the resulting table I expected after evaluating the formulas should look like this:

| Test | Hello World | Foo | TestHello WorldFoo |
|      |             |     | TestHello WorldFoo |

Is there a way to get the full string from cell @1$2 to cells @1$4 and @2$4 (with this whitespace character inside)?

Answer 1

I would say that this is not exactly a bug, but a complexity of dealing with the interpolation of values from the table into the lisp code of the formula.

The org manual says:

    With Emacs Lisp forms, you need to be conscious about the way field
references are interpolated into the form.  By default, a reference
will be interpolated as a Lisp string (in double-quotes) containing the
field.

While for org-sbe it says:

Return the results of calling SOURCE-BLOCK with VARIABLES.

Each element of VARIABLES should be a list of two elements: the
first element is the name of the variable and second element is a
string of its value.

But you're passing in a list of four elements, so exactly how it gets processed isn't clear. If I try #+TBLFM: '(org-sbe bugornot-src (x '(@1$1..@1$3))), to pass a single list of strings to x, then it works just fine.