[texhax] chktex, are it's reports any good?

[David Niklas]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 13:31:55 +1200
Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> See inline below.
> 
> On 16/04/17 12:50, great123456 at mail.com wrote:
> > A few days ago I found and ran chtex over my source. Though my source
> > produces correct results when latex runs it over I did get a
> > surprising amount of warnings. I have been rather through about
> > reading about latex, so some things are easy to fix but hard to
> > understand why they are wrong, the opposite is true for others so
> > please land a hand (I have removed duplicate warnings).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > David
> >
> >
> > % chktex wms.tex
> > ChkTeX v1.7.1 - Copyright 1995-96 Jens T. Berger Thielemann.
> > Compiled with PCRE regex support.
> >
> >
> > Warning 18 in wms.tex line 36: Use either `` or '' as an alternative
> > to `"'. Also, several of the WMs advertize "session managment" which
> > should remember ^
> >
> > # What is wrong with "?  
> 
> *Look* at the result for crying out loud!  A keyboard double quote mark 
> is always rendered as two acute accents, which is OK at the end of a 
> quotation, but you want two acute accents at the beginning.

Actually, I've been using latex2html and viewing the file with lynx.
I see a "
But I understand now, thanks.

> > Warning 13 in wms.tex line 39: Intersentence spacing (`\@') should
> > perhaps be used.
> > is managed when restarting the WM. So "session management" means
> > several things ^
> >
> > # I'm lost here  
> 
> Not sure about this.  Perhaps the warning is because the tail of the
> "g" in "managed" is sticking down too far into the next line.
Another mail from David Carlisle answered this, thanks David!

> > Warning 44 in wms.tex line 52: User Regex: -2:Vertical rules in tables
> > are ugly. \begin{tabular}{l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l}
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> > # What is a vertical rule, and how do I avoid it?  
> 
> The vertical rules are the vertical rules!!! As in ... l|l|l ...
I thought it was a pipe character...
I need to start a series:
"How the Linux command line corrupted me."

> Avoid them by leaving them out.  Use ...lll... .
> 
> These days typographers frown on vertical rules for some reason.  One
> is often exhorted to use the booktabs package which forbids them.  I'm
> not sure I completely agree with the typographers.  Apparently Lamport 
> didn't, when he wrote "LaTeX:  A  Document Preparation System", for he 
> used vertical rules freely.
> 
> >
> > Warning 1 in wms.tex line 338: Command terminated with space.
> > \cleardoublepage
> >                 ^
> > # Don't all commands end with a space?  
> 
> No.  None do, really.
Then how do they end?
Still kinda lost on this one.
I'll add another warning so you and Mr. Carlisle can perhaps better see
what's going on:

Warning 1 in wms.tex line 54: Command terminated with space.
ctwm  &  4.0.0\footnote & 438951 & 7704 .......
                       ^

> > Warning 26 in wms.tex line 348: You ought to remove spaces in front of
> > punctuation.
> > Your welcome to test it yourself and submit your findings :)
> >                                                          ^
> > # How do you make a smiley then?  
> 
> Perhaps: ... findings \texttt{ :-) }
> 
> Or put \usepackage{wasysym} in your preamble and use \smiley.
Thanks.

> > Warning 9 in wms.tex line 348: `}' expected, found `)'.
> > Your welcome to test it yourself and submit your findings :)
> >                                                            ^
> > Warning 10 in wms.tex line 350: Solo `}' found.
> > some WMs and not on others.}
> >                            ^  
> 
> Well, it looks to me like you've got an unbalanced brace, i.e. a right 
> "}" with no balancing left "{".
> 
> > # If I write something like this (and that too).
> > # What do I do to not upset chktex?  
> 
> Do things correctly?
Siri, define ``correctly''....
It apears that perhaps chktex is getting caught on the ) and then sees
a }. In any case, how do you add parenthesis to Latex? Is the above
contrived example correct?

> You should also learn some English; it's "you're welcome" not "your
> welcome"

I should have caught that. I must really look (be) stupid online
sometimes.

Thanks,
David