One tip about the verbose logs of Latex?

[luciano de souza]

Hello all,
I am really frightful with Latex logs. Yes, there is something wrong
because the output is not generated. but how to understand something
as verbose as I got?
I have an overflow in Latex stack, but it does not help me to retify
the mistake.
Here, I heard something about the usage of Latex by blind writers. So
it's a good news. Whatever is my problem, I know there is solution.
But, now I am thinking how to deal with Latex ultraverbose errors. Two
are the problems:
1. An output so verbose, it's extremely unsuitable for navigation by
screen readers;
2. The messages, at the point of view of meaning, are wholly enigmatic
and does not help me to undestand what I did wrongly.
So I would like to know if it's natural that beginners suffer a lot
with message errors and if there is something there I could do to
receive messages less enigmatic or to be able to understand what Latex
wants to know.
Let me show the frightfull log I got after and unsuccessful compilation:


This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.3-1.40.12 (MiKTeX 2.9) (preloaded
format=pdflatex 2012.8.31) 16 NOV 2012 08:05
entering extended mode
**brook.tex
(E:\textos\brook.tex
LaTeX2e <2011/06/27>
Babel <v3.8m> and hyphenation patterns for english, afrikaans, ancientgreek, ar
abic, armenian, assamese, basque, bengali, bokmal, bulgarian, catalan, coptic,
croatian, czech, danish, dutch, esperanto, estonian, farsi, finnish, french, ga
lician, german, german-x-2009-06-19, greek, gujarati, hindi, hungarian, iceland
ic, indonesian, interlingua, irish, italian, kannada, kurmanji, lao, latin, lat
vian, lithuanian, malayalam, marathi, mongolian, mongolianlmc, monogreek, ngerm
an, ngerman-x-2009-06-19, nynorsk, oriya, panjabi, pinyin, polish, portuguese,
romanian, russian, sanskrit, serbian, slovak, slovenian, spanish, swedish, swis
sgerman, tamil, telugu, turkish, turkmen, ukenglish, ukrainian, uppersorbian, u
senglishmax, welsh, loaded.
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\base\article.cls"
Document Class: article 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\base\size11.clo"
File: size11.clo 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)
)
\c@part=\count79
\c@section=\count80
\c@subsection=\count81
\c@subsubsection=\count82
\c@paragraph=\count83
\c@subparagraph=\count84
\c@figure=\count85
\c@table=\count86
\abovecaptionskip=\skip41
\belowcaptionskip=\skip42
\bibindent=\dimen102
)
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\generic\babel\babel.sty"
Package: babel 2008/07/08 v3.8m The Babel package

*************************************
* Local config file bblopts.cfg used
*
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\00miktex\bblopts.cfg"
File: bblopts.cfg 2006/07/31 v1.0 MiKTeX 'babel' configuration
)
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\generic\babel\portuges.ldf"
Language: portuges 2008/03/18 v1.2q Portuguese support from the babel system

("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\generic\babel\babel.def"
File: babel.def 2008/07/08 v3.8m Babel common definitions
\babel@savecnt=\count87
\U@D=\dimen103
)
\l@brazilian = a dialect from \language\l@portuges
Package babel Info: Making " an active character on input line 145.
))
("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\base\inputenc.sty"
Package: inputenc 2008/03/30 v1.1d Input encoding file
\inpenc@prehook=\toks14
\inpenc@posthook=\toks15

("C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\base\latin1.def"
File: latin1.def 2008/03/30 v1.1d Input encoding file
))
(E:\textos\brook.aux)
LaTeX Font Info: Checking defaults for OML/cmm/m/it on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: ... okay on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: Checking defaults for T1/cmr/m/n on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: ... okay on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: Checking defaults for OT1/cmr/m/n on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: ... okay on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: Checking defaults for OMS/cmsy/m/n on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: ... okay on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: Checking defaults for OMX/cmex/m/n on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: ... okay on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: Checking defaults for U/cmr/m/n on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: ... okay on input line 7.
LaTeX Font Info: External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font) <12> on input line 9.
LaTeX Font Info: External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font) <8> on input line 9.
LaTeX Font Info: External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font) <6> on input line 9.
[1

{C:/Users/Luciano/AppData/Local/MiKTeX/2.9/pdftex/config/pdftex.map}] (E:\texto
s\brook.toc
LaTeX Font Info: External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font) <10.95> on input line 3.


! Undefined control sequence.
<argument> ...arindent \z@ \itemindent \z@ \@list
\def {}\let \GenericError ...
l.7 \contentsline
{section}{\numberline {0.3}As a\c c\~oes}{9}
?
(E:\textos\brook.toc
! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [input stack size=5000].
\originalTeX ...extrasbrazilian \let \originalTeX
\@empty \let \-=\babel@0 \...
l.1 \select@language {brazilian}

If you really absolutely need more capacity,
you can ask a wizard to enlarge me.


Here is how much of TeX's memory you used:
617 strings out of 494045
7498 string characters out of 3145963
59123 words of memory out of 3000000
3961 multiletter control sequences out of 15000+200000
8504 words of font info for 30 fonts, out of 3000000 for 9000
715 hyphenation exceptions out of 8191
! ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
5000i,6n,24p,713b,187s stack positions out of 5000i,500n,10000p,200000b,50000s

[Raniere Gaia Silva]

Hi Luciano,
is not difficult to see very long logs of LaTeX.

When you compile your master_doc.tex using

$ pdflatex master_doc

it will stop at every error and wait a response of the user. IMHO,
this is the best way to you handle with the errors.

Although, for advanced users it is painfully and because of it almost
of the LaTeX editors (IDEs) compile the master_doc.tex using

$ pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode master_doc

and after the compilation parse the log so that the user only see the
errors messages.

For your log error look like that you are a from Brazil. If you prefer
to get help in portuguese you can send a email direct for me.

Raniere

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[Gildas Cotomale]

> Hello all,

Hello Luciano.

> I am really frightful with Latex logs. Yes, there is something wrong
> because the output is not generated. but how to understand something
> as verbose as I got?

As it's named, it's a log file :) It's the journal of everything
happening in the back-stage :
- if the *TeX engine load or parse a file, it is said;
- if the *TeX engine generate a file, it is said;
- if there's a problem, it's said; and if it's solved automatically
it's said too.
So much information is normal for a log-file and it's usefull in order
to check (or simply understand) every step and debug... By the same
way, log-files are not litterature for beginners but avanced one
(TeX-ing world is maybe an exception?)

[...]

> So I would like to know if it's natural that beginners suffer a lot
> with message errors and if there is something there I could do to
> receive messages less enigmatic or to be able to understand what Latex
> wants to know.

The better imho is to go commands lines and issue your command in
interactive mode (it should be the default when you type "pdflatex"
otherwhise add " -interaction errorstopmode"...) Doing so, most
messages are output in the screen (not all i think, but they will be
all in the log file) and the file processing stopts at every error
(not notices or warnings or informations, true errors). Then you only
have to read the latest lines to know what went wrong :)

[Peter Flynn]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 10:22 AM, luciano de souza <luch...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all,
I am really frightful with Latex logs. Yes, there is something wrong
because the output is not generated. but how to understand something
as verbose as I got?

There are a few rules:

A line beginning with "!" means an error. The other lines are just information.

 

I have an overflow in Latex stack, but it does not help me to retify
the mistake.

There is an error occurring before that. The stack overflow is a symptom, not a cause.

 

Here, I heard something about the usage of Latex by blind writers. So
it's a good news. Whatever is my problem, I know there is solution.
But, now I am thinking how to deal with Latex ultraverbose errors. Two
are the problems:
1. An output so verbose, it's extremely unsuitable for navigation by
screen readers;

Just search for "!" at the start of a line.

 

2. The messages, at the point of view of meaning, are wholly enigmatic
and does not help me to undestand what I did wrongly.

1. The last command shown on the line immediately after the error message is what caused the error. Here it is \@list
2. The error says: Undefined control sequence. This means that the command in [2] does not exist.
3. The line number where the error was noticed is shown on the line starting with "l." Here it is on line 7.
4. Files that are being used are opened with "(" and closed with ")". On the lines before the error, the last file to be opened is E:\textos\brook.toc so the line number means that line (7) in that file. Here it's the .toc or Table of Contents file.

{C:/Users/Luciano/AppData/Local/MiKTeX/2.9/pdftex/config/pdftex.map}] (E:\texto

s\brook.toc

LaTeX Font Info:    External font `cmex10' loaded for size

(Font)              <10.95> on input line 3.

! Undefined control sequence.

<argument> ...arindent \z@ \itemindent \z@ \@list

                                                  \def {}\let \GenericError ...

l.7 \contentsline

                  {section}{\numberline {0.3}As a\c c\~oes}{9}

?

Something caused the table of contents file to use the \contentsline macro (normal) and refer to \@list. The problem is that I have never come across \@list, so I don't know where it's coming from.

1. Delete the brook.toc file and re-run LaTeX twice
2. See if it creates the same error message
3. Create a minimal instance (an example file with all irrelevant stuff removed) which creates the error, Start by removing the \usepackage commands, and get down to the smallest irreducible file that still creates the error.
4. Post that file here so we can try it out and find the problem.

Without a minimal instance to test, it is usually impossible to find the error. Often you find it yourself while cutting down the file to make the minimal instance.

 

So I would like to know if it's natural that beginners suffer a lot
with message errors

Yes. Mostly, beginners try to do too much complex stuff too fast.

and if there is something there I could do to
receive messages less enigmatic

No, the messages are fixed.

 

or to be able to understand what Latex wants to know.

The most common errors are shown in my document at

http://latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/typesetting.html#errmsg

 

///Peter

[Randy Silvers]

Does BBEdit 10.x.x still support Excalibur 4.0.7?

If not, what other LaTeX spell-checkers are good to use with BBEdit 10.x.x?

Thanks,
Randy