[pracjourn-forum] Weird error with solution

[Peter Flom]

>>> karl at freefriends.org 9/12/2006 1:25 pm >>> wrote

The current maintainer of booktabs is apparently Danie Els,
dnjels at sun.ac.za.

>>>


I wrote to her, and she wrote back, essentially saying that this is a problem inherited from tabular itself, where an \hline without a \\ before it gives similarly mystifying messages:

<<<<<
! Misplaced \noalign.
\hline ->\noalign 
                  {\ifnum 0=`}\fi \hrule \@height \arrayrulewidth \futurelet...
l.12   \hline
             
? 
! You can't use `\hrule' here except with leaders.
\hline ->\noalign {\ifnum 0=`}\fi \hrule 
                                         \@height \arrayrulewidth \futurelet...
l.12   \hline
>>>>

I see her point!

Peter