A.6 Dynamic Blocks

Org supports dynamic blocks in Org documents. They are inserted with begin and end markers like any other code block, but the contents are updated automatically by a user function.

You can insert a dynamic block with org-dynamic-block-insert-dblock, which is bound to C-c C-x x by default. For example, C-c C-x x c l o c k t a b l e RET inserts a table that updates the work time (see Clocking Work Time).

Dynamic blocks can have names and function parameters. The syntax is similar to source code block specifications:

#+BEGIN: myblock :parameter1 value1 :parameter2 value2 ...
  ...
#+END:

These commands update dynamic blocks:

C-c C-x C-u (org-dblock-update)

Update dynamic block at point.

C-u C-c C-x C-u

Update all dynamic blocks in the current file.

Before updating a dynamic block, Org removes content between the ‘BEGIN’ and ‘END’ markers. Org then reads the parameters on the ‘BEGIN’ line for passing to the writer function as a plist. The previous content of the dynamic block becomes erased from the buffer and appended to the plist under :content.

The syntax for naming a writer function with a dynamic block labeled ‘myblock’ is: org-dblock-write:myblock.

The following is an example of a dynamic block and a block writer function that updates the time when the function was last run:

#+BEGIN: block-update-time :format "on %m/%d/%Y at %H:%M"
  ...
#+END:

The dynamic block’s writer function:

(defun org-dblock-write:block-update-time (params)
  (let ((fmt (or (plist-get params :format) "%d. %m. %Y")))
    (insert "Last block update at: "
            (format-time-string fmt))))

To keep dynamic blocks up-to-date in an Org file, use the function, org-update-all-dblocks in hook, such as before-save-hook. The org-update-all-dblocks function does not run if the file is not in Org mode.

Dynamic blocks, like any other block, can be narrowed with org-narrow-to-block.