[texhax] Problem with tabular environment

[Barbara Beeton]

michael barr is having problems with a tabular:

    The following file,

    \documentclass{article}
    \begin{document}

    \begin{tabular}{|b{1cm}|b{1cm}|b{1cm}|}\hline
      1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1&2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2&3 3 3 3\\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
    \end{document}

    copied from the bottom of p. 106 in the first
    edition of The LaTex Companion, results in the error message:

    ! LaTeX Error: Illegal character in array arg.

    [...]

    Any idea what is going on?  Incidentally, it compiles properly when the
    b{1cm} are replaced by p{1cm}, but that is not the output I want.

the problem is, you aren't using the array package.
the 2nd edition of the companion is a little more
clear in its example:

  \documentclass{article}
  \usepackage{array}
  \begin{document}

the particular code you're using is an extension.
							-- bb