R help - Jan 2007 - 2 problems with latex.table (quantreg package) - reproducible

Dear all,

When using latex.table from the quantreg package, I don't seem to be able to
set
table.env=FALSE: when I don't specify caption (as I think I should, when
understanding the R help rightly(?)), I get an error message, and when I
do so, of course I get one, as well.
The funny thing is, that a table is indeed produced in the first case,
so I get a nice tabular, but as I'm using the command within a for -
loop, the loop stops due to the error and only one latex table is
produced.

Example R-Code:

library(quantreg)

v1 <- c("val1","val1","val2")
v2 <- c("val1","val2","val2")
tab <- table(v1,v2)

latex.table(tab,table.env=FALSE)
#error - german R error message (saying that caption  is missing and
has no default :-) ):
#Fehler in cat(caption, "\n", file = fi, append = TRUE) :
#       Argument "caption" fehlt (ohne Standardwert)

latex.table(tab,table.env=FALSE,caption="nothing")
#error - german R error message:
#Fehler in latex.table(tab, table.env = FALSE, caption = "nothing") :
#       you must have table.env=TRUE if caption is given


The second problem is, that - when using latex.table to produce a
tabular within a table environment - I would like to specify cgroup
with only one value - one multicolumn being a heading for both columns
in the table.
But I'm not able to produce latex-compilable code:

latex.table(tab,cgroup="v2",caption="my table")

gives me the following latex code:
\begin{table}[hptb]
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|l||c|c|} \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l||}{\bf
tab}&\multicolumn{}{c||}{}&\multicolumn{2}{c|}{\bf v2}\\ \cline{2-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l||}{}&\multicolumn{1}{c|}{val1}&\multicolumn{1}{c|}{val2}\\
\hline
val1&1&1\\
val2&0&1\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\vspace{3mm}
\caption{my table\label{tab}}
\end{center}
\end{table}

and within this code the problem is the second multicolumn
(&\multicolumn{}{c||}{}), as it has no number specifying how many
columns the multicolumn should cover. Latex (at least my version)
complains.
When deleting this part of the code, the table is compiled and looks
exactly how I want it to look. I'm doing this with a system call and
an shell script right now, but this seems pretty ugly to me...

When I specify 2 columns, this problem doesn't occur:
latex.table(tab,cgroup=c("blah","v2"),caption="my
table")

I'm running R Version 2.3.0 (2006-04-24) on a linux machine Fedora
Core 5 (i386).

Can anyone help me find my mistakes?

Thanks a lot
... and sorry for my bad English and potential newbie mistakes!!
Kati

The usual R-help etiquette recommends:

1.  questions about packages go to the maintainer, not to R-help.

2.  examples should be reproducible:  ie self contained.

if you look carefully at the function latex.summary.rqs  you will see
that there is a failure to pass the argument "..." on to  
latex.table.  This
_may_ be the source of your problem if in fact your v1 and v2 were
summary.rqs objects, but I doubt that they are.

You might try caption = "".  More generally there are much improved
latex tools elsewhere in R; if you aren't making tables that are  
specific
to quantreg, you might want to use them.


url:    www.econ.uiuc.edu/~roger            Roger Koenker
email    rkoenker at uiuc.edu            Department of Economics
vox:     217-333-4558                University of Illinois
fax:       217-244-6678                Champaign, IL 61820


On Jan 10, 2007, at 12:23 PM, Kati Schweitzer wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> When using latex.table from the quantreg package, I don't seem to  
> be able to set
> table.env=FALSE: when I don't specify caption (as I think I should,  
> when
> understanding the R help rightly(?)), I get an error message, and  
> when I
> do so, of course I get one, as well.
> The funny thing is, that a table is indeed produced in the first case,
> so I get a nice tabular, but as I'm using the command within a for -
> loop, the loop stops due to the error and only one latex table is
> produced.
>
> Example R-Code:
>
> library(quantreg)
>
> v1 <- c("val1","val1","val2")
> v2 <- c("val1","val2","val2")
> tab <- table(v1,v2)
>
> latex.table(tab,table.env=FALSE)
> #error - german R error message (saying that caption  is missing and
> has no default :-) ):
> #Fehler in cat(caption, "\n", file = fi, append = TRUE) :
> #       Argument "caption" fehlt (ohne Standardwert)
>
> latex.table(tab,table.env=FALSE,caption="nothing")
> #error - german R error message:
> #Fehler in latex.table(tab, table.env = FALSE, caption =
"nothing") :
> #       you must have table.env=TRUE if caption is given
>
>
> The second problem is, that - when using latex.table to produce a
> tabular within a table environment - I would like to specify cgroup
> with only one value - one multicolumn being a heading for both columns
> in the table.
> But I'm not able to produce latex-compilable code:
>
> latex.table(tab,cgroup="v2",caption="my table")
>
> gives me the following latex code:
> \begin{table}[hptb]
> \begin{center}
> \begin{tabular}{|l||c|c|} \hline
> \multicolumn{1}{|l||}{\bf
> tab}&\multicolumn{}{c||}{}&\multicolumn{2}{c|}{\bf v2}\\
\cline{2-3}
> \multicolumn{1}{|l||}{}&\multicolumn{1}{c|}{val1}&\multicolumn{1} 
> {c|}{val2}\\
> \hline
> val1&1&1\\
> val2&0&1\\
> \hline
> \end{tabular}
> \vspace{3mm}
> \caption{my table\label{tab}}
> \end{center}
> \end{table}
>
> and within this code the problem is the second multicolumn
> (&\multicolumn{}{c||}{}), as it has no number specifying how many
> columns the multicolumn should cover. Latex (at least my version)
> complains.
> When deleting this part of the code, the table is compiled and looks
> exactly how I want it to look. I'm doing this with a system call and
> an shell script right now, but this seems pretty ugly to me...
>
> When I specify 2 columns, this problem doesn't occur:
> latex.table(tab,cgroup=c("blah","v2"),caption="my
table")
>
> I'm running R Version 2.3.0 (2006-04-24) on a linux machine Fedora
> Core 5 (i386).
>
> Can anyone help me find my mistakes?
>
> Thanks a lot
> ... and sorry for my bad English and potential newbie mistakes!!
> Kati
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting- 
> guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.