[Tex/LaTex] How to word-wrap LaTeX warning/error output

documentclass-writingerrorspackage-writingwarnings

This question led to a new package:
hardwrap

In writing error messages and warnings for a package/class, I find it a pain to manually insert \MessageBreaks so that words don't get cruelly bisected because of TeX's max_print_line value (which typically is set to 79). In some cases it's not possible to predict where the \MessageBreak should go because a macro in the warning/error message may be expanded to any length of string.

I'd like to have a macro that would take my warning/error message, expand it (so that any macros are expanded to plain strings), and insert \MessageBreaks in the appropriate places based on the value of max_print_line and LaTeX's per-line prefixes (Package <XXX> Warning: and similar).

(If the value of max_print_line can't be accessed from within TeX, I'd settle for just implementing a greedy word-wrap algorithm with the default line length values.)

Follow-up: Will Robertson and I created the hardwrap package to achieve the desired affect.

Best Answer

I never published the solution I wrote some time ago, but perhaps I should. Here's the link to an example: http://gist.github.com/605753 It's written in the plain old LaTeX programming style; it was a while ago so there are probably a few things in there that I now know how to do in a better way.

There are three examples where the broken text is typeset at different line lengths, and then a fourth example in which it is printed to the terminal. This isn't expandable (if it's possible, it would be difficult to say the least), but for many purposes that won't be an issue.

The code is undocumented, but you should be able to see the gist of it by ignoring everthing before \begin{document}. If you find it useful, I suggest we write a package for CTAN with some documentation and a better interface.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to find a footnote by its number (Hfootnote.xx)

Your error is produced by the following MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{hyperref}
\begin{document}
Test\footnote{Footnote text.}.
\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{cc}
    First & Second\footnote{Second footnote.}
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{Caption}
  \label{tab:t}
\end{table}

\end{document}

this time with reference to {HFootnote.2}. The .2 means that is the second footnote causing the problem. Cutting and pasting your other code in does not produce the error your report from the table with a \parnote. So try to track down direct uses of the \footnote command in your document.

hyperref has all sorts of issues with footnotes. See the answers to the question Clickable Table Footnote, for discussion, why not to do this, and workarounds.

[Tex/LaTex] What does “File stack underflow!” mean

This warning is caused by currfile in an at-end hook because it tried to restore the parent file name which was not available. This is the case if currfile is loaded by another package and not in the main file.

currfile requires filehook and installs corresponding at-begin and at-end hooks for all files. If filehook is not already loaded before the hooks will only be affected by all files opened afterwards. However, if it is already loaded, the at-end hooks of currfile and the package which loads it, and the package which loads that package, and so on, are executed while the at-begin hooks are already executed before currfile patched them. This leads to a stack underflow.

A workaround is to load currfile very early yourself in the preamble, before filehook is loaded by any package or class.

As I see no real way to avoid the stack underflow in this case and it is not a problem and no underflow should occur in any other case, I now remove the warning altogether. In that case the \currfilename macros where always empty. I now changed them to hold the main file name. I will publish these changes as a new version soon.

See the official bug ticket for further information.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to find a footnote by its number (Hfootnote.xx)

[Tex/LaTex] What does “File stack underflow!” mean

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