Org Mode - Use remote table reference in constants

Question

In https://orgmode.org/manual/References.html remote references are mentioned. Also there are constants for a local environment of a table. I would like to retrieve the value for a constant from the calculations of another table. In a sense it would not be a constant any longer, but in the scope of the table, it would still be a constant.

Is such a thing possible?

I tried:

#+CONSTANTS: hours=remote(other-table-name, @>$5)

But it does not seem to work and gives an error in the cell, where I use the constant.

Answer 1

Defining Constant Values from Remote Org-Table Cell for Use in #+TBLFM:

Initial Setup

Create Named Table, e.g. other-table-name

#+NAME: other-table-name
| S | M | T | W | H | F | S |
|---+---+---+---+---+---+---|
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Method 1 - Dynamically Define #+CONSTANTS: using SRC Block Results

In this example, the programming language used is elisp but org-mode can be configured to run source blocks in over 30 programming languages so pick another language you like, if you don't don't want to use elisp.

The only requirements for SRC block are:

1. SRC block #+RESULTS: must provide valid #+CONSTANTS: declaration, e.g. #+CONSTANTS: constantname=constantvalue
2. Add :results drawer or :results raw headers to SRC block so that org-mode can interpret the #+RESULTS: as org syntax.
3. The constant value must be fetched from cell in named table, e.g. other-table-name

In this specific example, I used Indexable Variable Values syntax, i.e. constant-value=other-table-name[2,4], to fetch constant value from a specific cell in table.

#+NAME: define-constant-with-src-block
#+BEGIN_SRC elisp :var constant-name="HOURS" :var constant-value=other-table-name[2,4] :results drawer
  (format "#+CONSTANTS: %s=%s" constant-name constant-value)
#+END_SRC

#+RESULTS: define-constant-with-src-block
:results:
#+CONSTANTS: HOURS=4
:end:


#+name: example-table-method-1
| Value of $HOURS from CONSTANTS generated by SRC Block | 4 |
#+TBLFM: @1$2=$HOURS

Method 2 - Use org-table Advanced features syntax to create local table constant with value fetched using remote(other-table-name, @>$5)

#+name: example-table-method-2
| # | Value of $hours fetched from other-table-name         |       4 |
| $ |                                                       | hours=4 |
#+TBLFM: @1$3=$hours::@2$3='(format "hours=%s" remote(other-table-name, @>$5))

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Thank you for asking your question!

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The code in this answer was validated using the following:
emacs version: GNU Emacs 27.1
org-mode version: 9.3.7