[R-pkg-devel] Debian pandoc "\passthrough undefined" error and workaround

[Paul Johnson]

Today I saw an error from CRAN that I did not see in Win-builder or on
my system with Ubuntu Linux. This is from the CRAN Debian test system:

* checking for unstated dependencies in vignettes ... OK
* checking package vignettes in ‘inst/doc’ ... OK
* checking re-building of vignette outputs ... [6s/7s] WARNING
Error in re-building vignettes:
  ...
! Undefined control sequence.
l.204 \passthrough
                  {\lstinline!Rmarkdown!} is a style of markdown document used

I checked the pandoc devel site and they mention that in newer pandoc,
the software will make available a macro named \passthrough.  So far
as I can tell, it was a glitch at one time that pandoc inserted the
usage of \passthrough macro making sure that is defined in the
document preamble. This only affected documents that ask for use of
the listings class by pandoc and LaTeX.

The small code block I insert in the template in order to pass the
automated CRAN check is:

$if(listings)$
\usepackage{listings}
\newcommand{\passthrough}[1]{#1}
$endif$

I am led to believe that the problem will disappear when Debian pandoc
is updated.  On my Ubuntu system using pandoc-1.19.2.4, I don't have
any trouble building the vignettes or running build check --as-cran.

pj

-- 
Paul E. Johnson   http://pj.freefaculty.org
Director, Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis http://crmda.ku.edu

To write to me directly, please address me at pauljohn at ku.edu.