centering blocks cause latex export to crash

centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Robert Goldman]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 256 bytes --]

I am using the latest org from git.

The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
"unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."

This did work, as recently as a month ago, so something relatively
recent has broken it.

best,
r

[-- Attachment #2: center-export-bug.org --]
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#+TITLE:     center-export-bug.org
#+AUTHOR:    Robert P. Goldman
#+EMAIL:     rpgoldman@sift.info
#+DATE:      2011-12-14 Wed
#+DESCRIPTION:
#+KEYWORDS:
#+LANGUAGE:  en
#+OPTIONS:   H:3 num:t toc:t \n:nil @:t ::t |:t ^:t -:t f:t *:t <:t
#+OPTIONS:   TeX:t LaTeX:t skip:nil d:nil todo:t pri:nil tags:not-in-toc
#+INFOJS_OPT: view:nil toc:nil ltoc:t mouse:underline buttons:0 path:http://orgmode.org/org-info.js
#+EXPORT_SELECT_TAGS: export
#+EXPORT_EXCLUDE_TAGS: noexport
#+LINK_UP:   
#+LINK_HOME: 
#+XSLT:
#+TAGS: noexport

#+begin_center
Not Cleared for Public Release
#+end_center

* Problem with centering block.

My document fails to export successfully to latex with the above =center= block
in it.

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Nick Dokos]

Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> wrote:

> I am using the latest org from git.
> 
> The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
> "unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."
> 
> This did work, as recently as a month ago, so something relatively
> recent has broken it.
> 
> best,
> r

Indeed, but note that the latex exporter has always been a little flaky
with stuff before the first headline. As a workaround, if you add a
headline before the block, it works.

Nick

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Robert Goldman]

On 12/14/11 Dec 14 -3:06 PM, Robert Goldman wrote:
> I am using the latest org from git.
> 
> The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
> "unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."
> 
> This did work, as recently as a month ago, so something relatively
> recent has broken it.

I got in the debugger, and the problem is that the regular expression
for the end of the centering block, computed as inner-re in
org-export-blocks-preprocess fails to match my #+end_center

inner-re is:

(inner-re (format "[\r\n][ \t]*#\\+\\(begin\\|end\\)_%s"
				     (regexp-quote (downcase (match-string 2)))))

I don't understand why this is happening: I haven't been able to tell if
the regular expression is incorrectly written, so it fails to find the
ending of the center block, or if somehow the logic in the while loop
(which counts begins and ends to make sure they match) is counting wrong.

Cheers,
r

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Robert Goldman]

On 12/14/11 Dec 14 -3:13 PM, Nick Dokos wrote:
> Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> wrote:
> 
>> I am using the latest org from git.
>>
>> The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
>> "unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."
>>
>> This did work, as recently as a month ago, so something relatively
>> recent has broken it.
>>
>> best,
>> r
> 
> Indeed, but note that the latex exporter has always been a little flaky
> with stuff before the first headline. As a workaround, if you add a
> headline before the block, it works.
> 
> Nick

Thanks.  But the workaround is not ideal here --- the centering block is
supposed to say "Not Cleared for Public Release" for reasons of
conditions on my research grant, and that really is not supposed to be
in a heading.

I have another work-around, but I think the general principle is that
forbidding text before the first header is not an ideal constraint. If
there's a way to have a header that doesn't produce output (a la
noexport), but that doesn't suppress its children, that might be a handy
way to accomplish this.  I don't know if that's possible (that would
also be handy for outlines where you want the outline structure to "fade
away" and just leave you with the text that the outline inspired).

Best,
r

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Nick Dokos]

Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> wrote:


> Thanks.  But the workaround is not ideal here --- the centering block is
> supposed to say "Not Cleared for Public Release" for reasons of
> conditions on my research grant, and that really is not supposed to be
> in a heading.
> 

Can it be in a watermark? Something like this perhaps:

#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{draftwatermark}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \SetWatermarkText{Not Cleared for Public Release}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \SetWatermarkFontSize{42pt}

> I have another work-around, but I think the general principle is that
> forbidding text before the first header is not an ideal constraint. If
> there's a way to have a header that doesn't produce output (a la
> noexport), but that doesn't suppress its children, that might be a handy
> way to accomplish this.  I don't know if that's possible (that would
> also be handy for outlines where you want the outline structure to "fade
> away" and just leave you with the text that the outline inspired).
> 

Agreeed - I believe it's a long standing weakness in the implementation
of the exporter and I also believe we'll see a reimplementation (soon?)
based on Nicolas's parser. BTW, I wonder what the parser says about text
before the first headline.

Nick

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Bastien]

Hi Robert,

Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> writes:

> The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
> "unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."

This should work as expected now - please pull and confirm.

Thanks,

-- 
 Bastien

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Nick Dokos]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:

> Hi Robert,
> 
> Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> writes:
> 
> > The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
> > "unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."
> 
> This should work as expected now - please pull and confirm.
> 

I tried it with Robert's skeleton input file: AFAICT, it works as
expected. I hope it works with Robert's real file too.

Thanks for fixing it!

Nick

Re: centering blocks cause latex export to crash

[Robert Goldman]

On 12/23/11 Dec 23 -12:41 PM, Nick Dokos wrote:
> Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Robert,
>>
>> Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> writes:
>>
>>> The attached org-mode file causes latex export to crash with an error of
>>> "unbalanced begin/end center blocks with ...."
>>
>> This should work as expected now - please pull and confirm.
>>
> 
> I tried it with Robert's skeleton input file: AFAICT, it works as
> expected. I hope it works with Robert's real file too.
> 
> Thanks for fixing it!
> 
> Nick

Yes, this works with my original source file, too!

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

Robert