General ⇒ subfig, tocloft error: \if@cftsubfigopt\else ...

[Cham]

I'm now getting a compilation error and I'm yet unable to find why. Here's the gibberish "error" message from the tocloft.sty file, and I don't know how to interpret it :

\if@cftsubfigopt\else
\newcounter{lofdepth}\setcounter{lofdepth}{1}
\newcounter{lotdepth}\setcounter{lotdepth}{1}
\fi

What is happening here ?

EDIT 1 : Weird ! Apparently, it's related to the subfig package. I didn't had any problem with it before, and suddenly it gives me troubles at compilation !? Desactivating it solves the compilation halting, but reactivating it (without any other changes) stop the compilation with an error. What the ... !?

EDIT 2 : It's also apparently related to the tocloft package in some subtle way that I don't undertand.

This begins to make me very nervous, since my document is now very advanced. The preamble is very complicated !

[Cham]

?? What the .. !?? I need an explanation on this :

Loading the subfig package AFTER the tocloft package solves my compilation problem. What is happening here ?

[Stefan Kottwitz]

That's because tocloft and subfig use the same counter names lofdepth and lotdepth. Name conflicts happen sometimes, also package dependencies, sometimes we have to take care of the package loading order in our document.

As you noticed, loading subfig after tocloft works. Btw. tocloft knows the (older) subfigure package, which uses the same counters, and provides an option which avoids the definition of the new counter, so there's no error if you provide the subfigure option, even in the other loading order.

Code: Select all

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\usepackage{subfig}
\usepackage[subfigure]{tocloft}
 
 
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But, this is intended for subfigure instead of subfig. So I would just change the order and omit that option.

Stefan

[Cham]

Thanks for the explanation Stefan.

How should we know that there may be packages clashes like this, before loading them ? Is it just a matter of trial and error ? This makes preamble configuration more complicated than what it should.

I may have another kind of weird clash/conflict (?), since some of my index entries don't point to the right page. I'm unable to find the reason (I don't see any error message in the console related to the index generation). This one is very hard to solve. Almost all of my index entries are working great (they point to the proper page), but a few aren't.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Compatibility issues are usually mentioned in the package documentation. For example, the tocloft package documentation speaks about compatibility with the subfigure package. subfig as the successor is perhaps a bit too new.

It's a general issue that there can be conflicts with names, since there are thousands of packages developed over many years. Often the package documentation mentions that. Often they can be solved, for example by using a certain loading order. The best would be if package authors would use package specific names, such as using a package name prefix. Not many authors do that.

Regarding your new question, perhaps open a new thread with as much information as possible, especially with a hacked down copy as a minimal working example.

Stefan