Knitting fails if no cite keys are present in rmd

[mariusbarth]

If a user uses the apa6 template, but the rmd does not contain any cite keys (e.g., if R and its packages are not cited), knitting fails with a rather cryptic error message (empty item in latex). It would be great to handle this edge case by either issuing a meaningful warning/error or removing the reference section.

[crsh]

Can you provide a more detail? Is this because the there is a bib-file specified in the YAML front matter that does not exist? What is the error message you are seeing?

[mariusbarth]

You can reproduce the error by creating a new papaja document from the template and remove line 84:

We used `r cite_r("r-references.bib")` for all our analyses.

If you try to knit, the error

! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item.

is returned. I suspect this is because there is no cite key to be added to the reference list.

In line with such reasoning, also removing

::: {#refs custom-style="Bibliography"}
:::

allows us to knit the document, again.

[conig]

FYI I can't reproduce this on pandoc 3.8. I have seen this issue on older versions of pandoc.

pandoc 3.8
Features: +server +lua
Scripting engine: Lua 5.4

[crsh]

Thanks for chiming in, James. That's helpful information!