ctable footnotes - automatic labeling?

Question

Is there a way to have ctable automatically label the footnotes: a, b, c, etc... (or some other formatting)?

\ctable[
] {rl} {
    \tnote{first footnote}
    \tnote{second footnote}
}{
    \FL Configuration & Error
    \ML Full\tmark & 0.0
    \ML Partial\tmark & 0.0
    \LL
}

The above code marks them all as footnote a. Obviously I could specify each individually (\tnote[a]{}, \tnote[b]{}), but where's the fun in that?

Answer 1

The automation is currently not part of ctable, since numbering is done using an optional argument to both \tnote[<num>] and \tmark[<num>].

Based on your (very) minimal example, the following should suffice:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ctable}% http://ctan.org/pkg/ctable
\usepackage{etoolbox}% http://ctan.org/pkg/etoolbox
\newcounter{ctabfnote}\newcounter{ctabfmark}
\renewcommand{\thectabfnote}{\alph{ctabfnote}}
\renewcommand{\thectabfmark}{\alph{ctabfmark}}
\pretocmd{\ctable}% <cmd>
  {\setcounter{ctabfnote}{0}%
   \setcounter{ctabfmark}{0}}% <prepend>
  {}{}% <success><failure>
\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\tnote}[1]{%
  \stepcounter{ctabfnote}%
   \ifx\@ctblnotespar\@ctbltrue%
     \@ctbltextsuperscript{\normalfont\textit{\thectabfnote}}\,#1
   \else%
     \hbox{\@ctbltextsuperscript{\normalfont\textit{\thectabfnote}}}&#1\NN
   \fi
}
\renewcommand{\tmark}{%
  \stepcounter{ctabfmark}%
   \hbox{\textsuperscript{\normalfont\textit{\thectabfmark}}}}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\ctable[
] {rl} {
    \tnote{first footnote}
    \tnote{second footnote}
}{
    \FL Configuration & Error
    \ML Full\tmark & 0.0
    \ML Partial\tmark & 0.0
    \LL
}

\end{document}

Two new counters are introduced, one for each of \tnote and \tmark. I've also modified the input to \tnote and \tmark to drop the optional argument, since they're not needed anymore. Counter are reset at the start of \ctable (via a patch thanks to etoolbox).