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yihui
`escape=TRUE` should escape LaTeX captions
Several users have opened issues -- here and on the kableExtra repository -- because they have trouble compiling LaTeX tables when captions include “special” characters:
- https://github.com/yihui/knitr/issues/1604
- https://github.com/yihui/knitr/issues/1251
- https://github.com/haozhu233/kableExtra/issues/670
- https://github.com/haozhu233/kableExtra/issues/708
I believe that the source of the confusion is that the escape=TRUE argument applies to cells as well as to row and column names, but that it does not affect the caption. This is very counterintuitive. If escape=TRUE, I think most users will expect the whole table to be escaped, including the caption.
I volunteer to prepare a Pull Request which ensures that LaTeX captions get escaped when escape=TRUE. Is that something you would potentially be interested in reviewing and merging?
Illustration:
library(knitr)
dat <- data.frame(
a_1 = 1:2,
a_2 = 2:3
)
kable(dat,
caption = "% sign breaks compilation",
escape = TRUE,
format = "latex") |>
cat()
#> \begin{table}
#>
#> \caption{\label{tab:unnamed-chunk-2}% sign breaks compilation}
#> \centering
#> \begin{tabular}[t]{r|r}
#> \hline
#> a\_1 & a\_2\\
#> \hline
#> 1 & 2\\
#> \hline
#> 2 & 3\\
#> \hline
#> \end{tabular}
#> \end{table}
sessionInfo()
#> R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23)
#> Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
#> Running under: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
#>
#> Matrix products: default
#> BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/blas/libblas.so.3.10.0
#> LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.10.0
#>
#> locale:
#> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C
#> [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
#> [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
#> [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C
#> [9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
#> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
#>
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats graphics grDevices datasets utils methods base
#>
#> other attached packages:
#> [1] rmarkdown_2.14 knitr_1.39 nvimcom_0.9-131
#>
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#> [1] magrittr_2.0.3 R.cache_0.16.0 rlang_1.0.4
#> [4] fastmap_1.1.0 fansi_1.0.3 stringr_1.4.0
#> [7] styler_1.7.0 tools_4.2.1 xfun_0.31
#> [10] R.oo_1.25.0 utf8_1.2.2 cli_3.3.0
#> [13] withr_2.5.0 htmltools_0.5.3 yaml_2.3.5
#> [16] digest_0.6.29 tibble_3.1.8 lifecycle_1.0.1
#> [19] purrr_0.3.4 vctrs_0.4.1 R.utils_2.12.0
#> [22] fs_1.5.2 bspm_0.3.9 glue_1.6.2
#> [25] evaluate_0.15 reprex_2.0.1 stringi_1.7.8
#> [28] compiler_4.2.1 pillar_1.8.0 R.methodsS3_1.8.2
#> [31] pkgconfig_2.0.3
I totally agree with you, and I deeply regret not having put enough thought in this problem. However, this would be a breaking change. Users who have escaped special characters by themselves would have to remove the backslashes.
