Add utility function to create selector functions from table headers

This might be useful to work with table data from Org tables in source blocks,
maybe.

Does this exist somewhere already?

init.el

@@ -611,7 +611,8 @@
              db/sync-magit-repos-from-projectile
              db/replace-variables-in-string
              db/dired-ediff-files
-             db/grep-read-files))
+             db/grep-read-files
+             db/make-selector-from-table-header))
 
 (use-package db-hydras
   :commands (hydra-toggle/body

site-lisp/db-utils.el

@@ -552,6 +552,60 @@ entries, even if I want to use the input directly."
          (or (cdr (assoc files grep-files-aliases))
              files))))
 
+(defun db/make-selector-from-table-header (header)
+  "Return selector function based on names contained in HEADER.
+
+A selector function is a function that receives a KEY (a symbol)
+and a ROW (list of values) and returns the value in ROW with the
+same index that KEY has in HEADER.  A use-case for such a
+selector function is to have a table represented as a list of
+lists (rows), where the first list (row) is the header and all
+subsequent lists (rows) are the actual values; to access values
+in all subsequent rows by name, one can use a selector function
+on the header to do so.
+
+HEADER must be a list of strings or symbols and must not contain
+duplicates when elements are considered as symbols."
+
+  (unless (listp header)
+    (user-error "Header is not a list, cannot create selector"))
+
+  (unless (-all? (-orfn #'stringp #'symbolp) header)
+    (user-error "Header must consist of strings or symbols, cannot create selector"))
+
+  (let ((header (-map #'(lambda (elt)
+                          (cond
+                            ((symbolp elt) elt)
+                            ((stringp elt) (intern (downcase elt)))))
+                      header)))
+
+    ;; Check for duplicates in HEADER
+    (when (-reduce-from #'(lambda (val tail)
+                            (or val (memq (cl-first tail)
+                                          (cl-rest tail))))
+                        nil
+                        (-tails header))
+      (user-error "Header contains duplicates, cannot create selector"))
+
+    ;; Return actual selector
+    (let* ((lookup-table (make-hash-table)))
+
+      (mapc #'(lambda (idx)
+                (puthash (nth idx header)
+                         idx
+                         lookup-table))
+            (-iota (length header)))
+
+      #'(lambda (column row)
+          (let ((key (if (symbolp column)
+                         column
+                       (user-error "Unknow key type %s of key %s"
+                                   (type-of column)
+                                   column))))
+            (if-let ((idx (gethash key lookup-table)))
+                (nth idx row)
+              (user-error "Unknow column name %s" column)))))))
+
 
 ;;; Base45 Decoding