cross-referencing
How does one set the value of a counter to the value obtained from a \ref{} command?
I am using the xr package to access labels from another document; I want to add the value of a \ref{} to a counter in my current document.
I tried \setcounter{newcount}{\value{\ref{oldlabel}}} but that doesn't work.
Something (eg hyperref) is likely redefining \ref in the \AtBeginDocument hook. You can try moving your definitions out of the preamble. For the kind of thing you are trying to do I would recommend checking into the cleveref package, which can do many intelligent things with referencing commands.
In order for you to reference the counter like that you need to use \refstepcounter. This steps the counter, as well as telling LaTeX to use the supplied counter for the following reference.
Then you need to replace the \label's. They need to address directly to the counter. Therefore your example would be:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array} %don't know why this is needed; get csname error otherwise
% automatically number examples throughout document
\newcounter{exno}
\newenvironment{examples}
{
\begin{flushleft}
\begin{tabular}{>{(\refstepcounter{exno}\theexno)}rl}
}
{
\end{tabular}
\end{flushleft}
}
\begin{document}
\section{Foo}
Here are some numbered example sentences.
\begin{examples}
\label{row1} &Content of row 1 \\
\label{row2} &Content of row 2
\end{examples}
Now I want to get a 1 here: \ref{row1}. I want to get a 2 here: \ref{row2}.
\end{document}
This will produce:
Added: This also works by linking to the row by loading hyperref package.
Best Answer
This is a job for the
\setcounterrefcommand from therefcountpackage: