Insert calculated results into LaTeX document

For my lab experiments, I write programs that do calculations with my measurements. Currently, those programs print out a plain summary of all the data in the terminal, like so: ``` U = 2.0 ± 0.1 V I = 6.0 ± 0.2 A ``` Since I had to write them by hand, I would just use those to write prose with the values in the text. From now on, we are allowed create our reports on the computer. I write my report in LaTeX and would like to have the results from the program automatically inserted into the text. That way, I can re-run the program without having to copy-paste the results into the text. Since the measurements and results are very heterogeneous, I thought about using a template language. Since I already use Python, I thought about Jinja like so: article.tex ``` We measured the voltage $U = \unit{<< u_val >> \pm << u_err >>}{\volt}$ and the current $I = \unit{<< i_val >> \pm << i_err >>}{\ampere}$. Then we computed the resistance $R = \unit{<< r_val >> \pm << r_err >>}{\ohm}$. All our measurements: \begin{table}[h] \begin{tabular}{rrr} $U/\volt$ & $I/\ampere$ \\ \hline %< for u, i in data: ->% $<< u >>$ & $<< i >>$ \\ %< endfor ->% \end{tabular} \end{table} ``` program.py ``` # Setting up Jinja env = jinja2.Environment( "%<", ">%", "<<", ">>", "[§", "§]", loader=jinja2.FileSystemLoader(".") ) template = env.get_template("article.tex") # Measurements. u_val = 6.2 u_err = 0.1 i_val = 2.0 i_err = 0.1 data = [ (3, 4), (1, 4.0), (5, 1), ] # Calculations r_val = u_val / i_val r_err = math.sqrt( (1/i_val * u_err)**2 + (u_val/i_val**2 * i_err)**2 ) # Rendering LaTeX document with values. with open("out.tex", "w") as f: f.write(template.render(**locals())) ``` out.tex ``` We measured the voltage $U = \unit{6.2 \pm 0.1}{\volt}$ and the current $I = \unit{2.0 \pm 0.1}{\ampere}$. Then we computed the resistance $R = \unit{3.1 \pm 0.162864974749}{\ohm}$. All our measurements: \begin{table}[h] \begin{tabular}{rrr} $U/\volt$ & $I/\ampere$ \\ \hline $3$ & $4$ \\ $1$ & $4.0$ \\ $5$ & $1$ \\ \end{tabular} \end{table} ``` The result looks pretty good, except that the one number would need rounding. My question is: Would that be a good way to do this, or are there better ways to get the numbers into the document?