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What is causing (and how can I fix) "Misplaced cr" and "Misplaced alignment tab" errors in an array environment when trying to compile my .dtx?

TeX - LaTeX Asked on June 4, 2021

I created a small package to help me typeset various tidbits in papers for a specific domain of theoretical computer science that I sometimes work in. So far, it has been working well, but I decided that I wanted to introduce auto-growing brackets since I can sometimes end up with a whole bunch of nested brackets being displayed. To do this, I introduced use of the ‘perfectcut‘ package. Or tried to.

For full reference, you can find the pre-perfectcut implementation here, and the attempt at a new implementation here. The only substantive difference between the two is changing the definitions of cpfunc, cpsend and cprecv, and introducing the new cpsystems@functorparens and cpsystems@msgbraces commands to back said new definitions.

The problem is, with just these changes (and, best as I can tell, the modification to cpfunc was the only one that actually caused these problems), is that now when I try to re-compile my .dtx file (using the command pdflatex cpsystems.dtx), I get a whole bunch of "Misplaced cr" and "Misplaced alignment tab &" errors. E.g., the very first ones look like:

! Misplaced cr.
reserved@c ->ifnum 0=`{}fi cr 
                                  
l.310 ...func{p}{h(R) cpfunc{p}{h(F)p(P)}}}~c(W)}
                                                  
? 
! Misplaced alignment tab character &.
<recently read> &
                 
l.310 ...func{p}{h(R) cpfunc{p}{h(F)p(P)}}}~c(W)}

In the full-blown file, these such errors start at line 310, with more being reported at lines 315, 370 and 375 (though the latter two are actually a repeat of the earlier two, for documentation reasons). Going by discussions of these errors that I could turn up, such as this TeXOverflow question, or this Overleaf help page, I surmise that the errors are probably not occurring there, but likely on the line above. Either way, though, I can’t work out what the issue really is.

The lines in question are using a package command, which in turn uses an array environment, to present something. On the previous line, I have included a line break. I have checked, and am fairly certain I have specified the correct number of & characters on those lines to get everything to fit together, and I didn’t see any errors previously.

I have done my best to create an example that reproduces the errors, which is below, though it is still awfully long (I wasn’t sure what else I could remove without mucking something up):

% iffalse meta-comment
% !TEX program  = pdfLaTeX
%
% fi
% iffalse
%<*readme>
%%cpsystems LaTeX package
%</readme>
% fi
%
% iffalse
%<*driver>
ProvidesFile{cpsystems.dtx}
%</driver>
%<package>NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
%<package>ProvidesPackage{cpsystems}
%<*package>
[2020/07/16 v0.14 Package to aid in typesetting cP systems 
    rulesets, following Nicolescu's standard style]
%</package>
%
%<*driver>
documentclass{ltxdoc}
usepackage{cpsystems}[2020/07/16 v0.14]
usepackage{fancyvrb}
usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}
EnableCrossrefs
CodelineIndex
RecordChanges
%OnlyDescription %Leave this commented out unless you have read the Doc documentation and know what you're doing
begin{document}
  DocInput{cpsystems-autogrow-bracks-mwe.dtx}
  PrintIndex
  PrintChanges
end{document}
%</driver>
% fi
%
%   begin{cpruleset}
%       cprule{s_1}{cpfunc{v}{v(R)Y}}{1}{s_2}{cpfunc{s}{r(R)~u(Y)~
%       cpfunc{p}{h(R)p()}}~c(lambda)}
%       
%       cprule{s_2}{cpfunc{s}{r(R)~u()  & cpfunc{p}{h(F)p(P)}  & c(C)}}
%       {+}{s_3}{cpfunc{z}{cpfunc{p}{h(R) cpfunc{p}{h(F)p(P)}}}~c(W)}
%       
%       cprule{s_2}{}{+}{s_2}{cpfunc{s}{r(R)~u(Z) 
%       & & & & cpfunc{p}{h(T) cpfunc{p}{h(F) p(P)}}
%        & & & & c(CW)}}
%       
%       cprule{s_2}{s(_)}{+}{s_2}{}
%       
%       cprule{s_3}{}{1}{s_4}{p'(P) quad c'(1D)}
%   end{cpruleset}
% StopEventually{PrintIndex}
% iffalse
%<*package>
% fi
%
% iffalse
%
% fi
% 
% subsection{Preamble}
%
%    begin{macrocode}
%

RequirePackage{array}
RequirePackage{framed}
RequirePackage{changepage}
RequirePackage{amsmath}
RequirePackage{trimspaces}
RequirePackage{newfloat}
RequirePackage{perfectcut}

newcounter{cpsystems@RuleNum}
%
%    begin{macrocode}
newenvironment{cpruleset}
    {begin{framed}begin{adjustwidth}{-1.0em}{-1.0em}
    renewcommand{arraystretch}{1.0}[begin{array}{lllllr}}
    {end{array}]end{adjustwidth}end{framed}}
%    end{macrocode}
%
% % begin{macro}{cprule}
%    begin{macrocode}
newcommand{cprule}[5]{
    refstepcounter{cpsystems@RuleNum}
    cpsystems@basecprule{#1}{#2}{#3}{#4}{#5}{(arabic{cpsystems@RuleNum})}
}
%    end{macrocode}
% end{macro}
%
% begin{macro}{cpfunc}
% Command for declaring a cP~systems functor.
% The first argument is the symbol for the functor itself, and the second argument is the objects contained inside the functor.
%    begin{macrocode}
newcommand{cpfunc}[2]{
    trim@spaces@noexp{#1cpsystems@functorparens{#2}}
}
%    end{macrocode}
% end{macro}
% 
% begin{macro}{cpsystems@basecprule}
% For writing out rules inside a |cpruleset| environment.
% Required arguments are, in order, beginning state name; LHS of rule; the label to be applied to the arrow; the ending state name; the RHS of the rule.
%    begin{macrocode}
newcommand{cpsystems@basecprule}[6]{
    trim@spaces@noexp{#1 & #2 & rightarrow_{#3} & #4 & #5 & #6}
}
%    end{macrocode}
% end{macro}
%
% begin{macro}{cpsystems@functorparens}
% To ensure that brackets resize themselves automatically in functors.
%    begin{macrocode}
newcommand{cpsystems@functorparens}[1]{
    perfectunary{IncreaseHeight}(){#1}
}
%    end{macrocode}
% end{macro}
%
% iffalse
%</package>
% fi
%
% Finale
% 

In case versions matter, I am using MikTex to run this, and it seems to be reporting its version as 20.6.29. AmsMath is version 2.17e. The ‘tools’ package doesn’t have a listed version in the MikTex console but is dated with ‘Tue Feb 4 10:11:41 2020’.

Can you see what the problem is? I imagine it is probably some trivial issue of a misplaced character or something, but I have been unable to figure this out. (I’m also open to suggestions on other aspects of the package if someone is keen enough 🙂 )

EDIT: I began to wonder if the perfectcut package actually had anything to do with this problem, and I’m not sure that it does in actuality. To test this, I removed the RequirePackage{perfectcut} line and modified the definition of cpsystems@cpfunctorparens to simply (#1). I still get the exact same error. Leaving perfectcut in, but changing the cpruleset block to just:

begin{cpruleset}
    cpfunc{a}{cpfunc{b}{cpfunc{c}{d}}}
end{cpruleset}

gives me exactly the expected behaviour. That said, I did also try to exclude the requirepackage line for perfectcut, but continue using perfectunary to define cpfunc, and didn’t seem to experience any errors with it, so I’m not 100% sure I was doing everything correctly. Does anybody have any suggestions on what I should do to test this further to determine the problem precisely?

One Answer

I came back to this today, and I seem to have found the problem. It was, in fact, two-fold. Firstly, I wasn't using the perfectunary environment correctly. For some daft reason, I wasn't using including all necessary curly braces. I.e. the definition was

newcommand{cpsystems@functorparens}[1]{
    perfectunary{IncreaseHeight}(){#1}
}

but should have been

newcommand{cpsystems@functorparens}[1]{
    perfectunary{IncreaseHeight}{(}{)}{#1}
}

Secondly, it appears that the perfectcut macros (or, at least, perfectunary) don't play nicely with linebreaks inside itself. In a couple of places in the documentation inside the .dtx file for the package, I had linebreaks inside cpfunc macros. The use of perfectunary seems to break these and cause the errors I was seeing. I tried changing them from to linebreak based on what I read here and here, which helped, but not totally. The errors stopped complaining about misplaced crs but swapped to complaining about misplaced &s. Removing the &s got rid of the errors, but now there doesn't seem to be any sort of line breaking at all going on inside either cpfunc or cprule macros. Currently, that is a lower priority for me than auto-growing brackets, so it is a trade-off I have made for now. Hopefully, I will stumble across a way to get that back.

You can find the results of all this at the GitHub repo under release v0.15 if you are interested.

Answered by Jarak on June 4, 2021

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