TeX - ! Extra alignment tab has been changed to \cr

Carlos linguafalsa at gmail.com
Sat Jul 6 14:18:59 CEST 2019


Hello list

David a few  months ago I brought  up an issue with the infamous `Extra
alignment tab has been changed to \cr` error attached to it, and you said ,
quote

and the error is not detected until  the & which is trying to put the
> Yes box into a third column of the table which only has two columns.
>
> there is no sensible way TeX could recover from this and guess your
> original intention.
>

http://tug.org/mail-archives/texhax/2019-January/023495.html

And we certainly have been over this before, - even prior to the above -
but I just want to confirm one more time, and based mostly on your
past-past and past comments, who's to be blamed for....

I thought at one time that this issue, namely the error with the misleading
title of `Extra alignment tab has been changed to \cr` , was in your end of
the LaTeX stick, but you threw the hands in the air and said that No no no,
this is TeX fault.

My question is this:

Who's responsible to take care of this? The error is misleading either by
wording or whatever other term you'd like to classify it under,  Would  it
be Knuth himself the person to take care of fixing it?

If so, am I going to get a golden ticket like in Charlie and the chocolate
factory? I mean, egreg got one and was asking for more, so I might as well
request one too. :)

\documentclass{article}
> \def\test#1#2{\hbox to 2cm{#1}}
>
> \begin{document}
>
> \begin{tabular}{cc}
> \hbox to 2cm{working} \expandafter \cr &  \hbox to 2cm {No}  \expandafter
> \cr \hbox to 2cm {not working}{} &
>  \test{Yes}{} \\
> \end{tabular}
>
> \end{document}
>
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