Improve Python Autofill

[zhizhongpu]

@liaochris and I don't like the current implementation of autofill.py. Here we discuss and improve the function.

fyi @jmshapir

[liaochris]

@zhizhongpu Per the lab meeting last week I believe the next step is to provide more details on proposed changes in implemenation?

[zhizhongpu]

• Problem: I don't like the current implementation (relative to the R version). Reasons:
  1. The macro's name GenerateAutofillMacros is too long, while the Autofill function is in practice an internal method that's both never used and confusing for it coincides with the script name autofill.py.
  2. It uses the Python variable name as the LaTex macro name, without the flexibility to rename.
  3. The formatting argument could be more readable (e.g. replace ["{}", "{:.0f}"] -> [None, 0])
  4. Redundant argument prefix autofill_
  5. Outdated docstring here when the argument can take in Path objects
  6. The lack of appendmode requires that the command can only be called once to write into the same file. This sometimes undermines readability
  7. There's no argument controlling mathmode vs textmode (although there's a workaround)

@liaochris

[liaochris]

@zhizhongpu fyi per internal discussion I crossed out the renaming task
**edit: ** removed cross-out per offline discussion with @zhizhongpu

[zhizhongpu]

Starting to work on this now @liaochris

[zhizhongpu]

909e1a9 implements everything in #155 (comment) except point 3. I realized that it's better to retain the formatting but I accepted None as no format.