automatic generation of list of tables in book/report writing

Question

I am writing a thesis using document class -book. The list of table is not generated automatically like the list of figure and table of contents. Please help me out.

Answer 1

The list of tables is generated by the command \listoftables; but like \listoffigures it's not really the list of tables: it lists all the \caption commands appearing inside table environments; so if you say

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{...}
...
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

nothing will appear in the list of tables.

One of the most diffuse prejudices is that a command \includegraphics can only appear inside a figure environments and often users confuse table with tabular.

\listoftables will not list tabular environments, but only those table environments that contain at least one \caption command (which might contain a tabular, but are not required to).

Answer 2

Do check two things: First, has the \listoftables command (should be located in the vicinity of the \listoffigures command) either been deleted or commented out (possibly by accident)? Second, do you maybe have only unnumbered table environments? If so, they won't show up in the List-of-Tables section by default.