[pracjourn-forum] For the error list

[Peter Flynn]

Peter Flom wrote:
> Here's a good one.....I figured it out.
> 
> Try leaving the \ off when you have a figure
> 
> that is try something like
> 
> begin{figure}
>   \includegraphics{figure.eps}
> \end{figure}
> 
> The error message is a lot of jargon and then 
>    Too many }
> 
> If you try the infamous h, you get a message that such booboss are
> usually harmless.
> 
> 
> So, when you're missing a \ but have the right number of { and } the
> error is that you have too many }

Very good one. What happens is that begin{figure} gets set as normal
text (which is it, of course), then the image gets inserted, and then
the \end{figure} starts doing its stuff -- which includes terminating
all the things that ought to have been started by \begin[figure}, which
includes an \egroup to end the group that should have been keeping all
the figure contents together (started by a \bgroup in \begin[figure}):

> <figure.eps>
> ! Too many }'s.
> \@endfloatbox ...pagefalse \outer at nobreak \egroup 
>                                                   \color at endbox 
> l.6 \end{figure}

which is the equivalent of a closing curly brace, which it counts as
one too many.

I guess environments should really set their name as the "current thing 
being processed", so that the moment \end{foo} is seen, LaTeX should 
check that "foo" is indeed the current environment, and therefore OK to 
close. If not, it should say somethng like "Can't end a figure that 
hasn't yet been begun".

///Peter