Getting Missing number, treated as zero error when trying to fit table in the document

Question

While trying to dynamically render a table, it gets out of the document generated and looks as follows:

To avoid this, I followed the steps mentioned in:

SO Post - 1, which uses tabularx
SO Post - 2, which uses adjustbox

But for both the approaches tried, I get an error saying:

Missing number, treated as zero

I tried reading about this error but could not understand, as it does not throw any error when doing without tabularx or adjustbox.

I am rendering my table using lualatex code as shown below:

 tex.print("\string\\begin{tabularx}{"  .. col_schema ..  "}") 

 -- row / col rendering here

 tex.print("\string\\end{tabularx}")

The document is generated from the JSON. I have shared JSON with the link for easier viewing : https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer/cbe2bd65

What could I do to avoid this error?

I don't think that tabularx is the right solution, better calculate your width and use p{} columns in a normal tabular. — Ulrike Fischer, May 08 '19 at 18:10
do not use tabularx especially if you are trying to make it fast and you have lots of them, it resets each table multiple times guessing column widths. If you do you it you need to generate the right syntax as noted in the answer — David Carlisle, May 08 '19 at 18:35
@DavidCarlisle Could you suggest a better way with an answer? — Amanda, May 08 '19 at 18:39
@Amanda use \begin{tabular}{p{2cm}p{4cm}p{3cm}} for some suitable column widths, it is your document I can't pick suitable widths — David Carlisle, May 08 '19 at 18:41

Marcel Krüger · Answer 1 · 2019-05-08T18:42:06.077

1

The problem is in

tex.print("\string\\begin{tabularx}{"  .. col_schema ..  "}")

This generates TeX code like

\begin{tabularx}{ | l | l|}

which misses a parameter: The tabularx environment expects the total width as first parameter, like

\begin{tabularx}{5cm}{ | X | X|}

Also this uses X, a column type for automatically sized columns. This type is the main feature of tabularx, so if you do not want to use it for your table, a normal tabular is a better choice.

So there are two possible fixes: Decide for a width and pass it to tabularx, additionally replace at least one column by a X column or replace tabularx with tabular. With tabular, you do not need to pass a width, TeX automatically uses the natural width of your table.

edited May 08 '19 at 18:42

answered May 08 '19 at 18:08

Marcel Krüger

34,151

Okay. Is there a way to auto-tune the width parameter? With 5cm, I get table that looks as https://ibb.co/Ld3SVsy – Amanda May 08 '19 at 18:11
@Amanda As Ulrike Fischer mentioned, you shouldn't use tabularx if you do want to set the table width. If you do want to set the width, but do not want to write an explicit number, you can e.g. use \linewidth to set the width to the width of the current line. – Marcel Krüger May 08 '19 at 18:15
@MarcelKrüger: tabularx will only work correctly if one uses at least one X type column. In your answer, the table uses two l type columns instead. – leandriis May 08 '19 at 18:33

Getting Missing number, treated as zero error when trying to fit table in the document

1 Answers1