r markdown not compiling

Question

So I have been using R Markdown for quite some time, but now when I try to knit my document, it fails. The following error message comes up:

LaTeX Error: Lonely \item--perhaps a missing list environment.

I am not sure as to why this happens since it was working for me before. I have two shortcuts in the preamble of my document:

1. \newcommand{\benum}{\begin{enumerate}}

2. \newcommand{\eenum}{\end{enumerate}}

I have a feeling that this could be the cause of my problems, but it is frustrating as I have used these for such a long time before this with no trouble.

Any help would be appreciated!

EDIT:

Here is a minimal document that I made. This small document will not knit, and the same error message described above comes up.

---
title: "Minimal Document"
author: Aiden Kenny
date: Friday, 09/21/2018
header-includes: 
  - #\usepackage{setspace}\doublespacing
  - \newcommand{\benum}{\begin{enumerate}}
  - \newcommand{\eenum}{\end{enumerate}}
  - \usepackage{xcolor}
fontsize: 12pt
geometry: margin=1in 
output: pdf_document
---

\newpage

```{r setup, include = FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(fig.width = 10, fig.height = 5, echo = TRUE)
library(mosaic)
library(knitr)
library(scatterplot3d)
```

1. Here is a sample of some code I found online. The code chunk by 
itself will run fine, so that is not the issue.


```{r, echp=FALSE}
require(stats); require(graphics)
plot(cars, xlab = "Speed (mph)", ylab = "Stopping distance (ft)",
 las = 1)
lines(lowess(cars$speed, cars$dist, f = 2/3, iter = 3), col = "red")
title(main = "cars data")
plot(cars, xlab = "Speed (mph)", ylab = "Stopping distance (ft)",
     las = 1, log = "xy")
title(main = "cars data (logarithmic scales)")
lines(lowess(cars$speed, cars$dist, f = 2/3, iter = 3), col = "red")
summary(fm1 <- lm(log(dist) ~ log(speed), data = cars))
opar <- par(mfrow = c(2, 2), oma = c(0, 0, 1.1, 0),
            mar = c(4.1, 4.1, 2.1, 1.1))
plot(fm1)
par(opar)
```

EDIT: I have been playing around with this, and this seems to be part of the issue:

\begin{enumerate}

\item Using the default enumerate/itemize commands

\item DO work!

\end{enumerate}

but...

\benum

\item Using the shortcut commands I made

\item DO NOT work!

\eenum

When I try to run the code chunks individually, they compile just fine and produce the desired graphs, so I suspect that this is an issue with LaTeX. But I am not a tex person so I am not sure.

The reason I had initially made these shortcut command was so that I could use chunks of R code in this type of environment (see https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/210003/how-can-i-nest-a-code-chunk-within-an-enumerate-environment-when-using-r-markdow).

As mentioned by someone below, this could have to do with something called Pandoc?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There is no need for raw LaTeX. The following knits fine and produces the result that I think you want to achieve:

---
title: "Minimal Document"
author: Aiden Kenny
date: Friday, 09/21/2018
header-includes: 
  - \usepackage{xcolor}
fontsize: 12pt
geometry: margin=1in 
output: 
  pdf_document:
    keep_tex: yes
---

\newpage

```{r setup, include = FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(fig.width = 10, fig.height = 5, echo = TRUE)
library(knitr)
```

1. Here is a sample of some code I found online. The code chunk by 
itself will run fine, so that is not the issue.


```{r}
require(stats); require(graphics)
plot(cars, xlab = "Speed (mph)", ylab = "Stopping distance (ft)",
 las = 1)
lines(lowess(cars$speed, cars$dist, f = 2/3, iter = 3), col = "red")
title(main = "cars data")
plot(cars, xlab = "Speed (mph)", ylab = "Stopping distance (ft)",
     las = 1, log = "xy")
title(main = "cars data (logarithmic scales)")
lines(lowess(cars$speed, cars$dist, f = 2/3, iter = 3), col = "red")
summary(fm1 <- lm(log(dist) ~ log(speed), data = cars))
opar <- par(mfrow = c(2, 2), oma = c(0, 0, 1.1, 0),
            mar = c(4.1, 4.1, 2.1, 1.1))
plot(fm1)
par(opar)
```

2. Thanks for the help. This document will not knit!

As an alternative you could also use the full commands: \begin{enumerate} and \end{enumerate}. I am not sure why your abbreviations are getting stripped from the TeX file by pandoc.