Docstring for the keyword argument backend is not consistent with the implementation

[daniel-thom]

The docstring for pretty_table says

    backend::Union{Symbol, T_BACKENDS}: Select which back-end will be used to print the table (see the section Backend). Notice
       that the additional configuration in kwargs... depends on the selected backend.

but this no longer works in v2.1.2.

julia> pretty_table([1], backend = :text)
ERROR: TypeError: in keyword argument backend, expected Union{Val{:auto}, Val{:text}, Val{:html}, Val{:latex}}, got a value of type Symbol
Stacktrace:
 [1] _pretty_table(io::IO, data::Vector{Int64}; header::Nothing, kwargs::Base.Pairs{Symbol, Symbol, Tuple{Symbol}, NamedTuple{(:backend,), Tuple{Symbol}}})
   @ PrettyTables ~/.julia/packages/PrettyTables/tUDry/src/private.jl:275
 [2] #pretty_table#60
   @ ~/.julia/packages/PrettyTables/tUDry/src/print.jl:702 [inlined]
 [3] top-level scope
   @ REPL[7]:1

It used to work in v1.3.1. I see that there was a breaking change in v2 and you need to pass backend = Val(:text) now.

[ronisbr]

Hi @daniel-thom !

Ok, I will improve the documentation.

[wgmitchener]

It's September 1, 2025, and the documentation has not been updated on this point. None of the examples with a backend = work because they need to be backend = Val(...).

[ronisbr]

Hi @wgmitchener !

PrettyTables.jl v3 was released some days ago. In this case, you pass only a symbol:

julia> using PrettyTables

julia> pretty_table([1], backend = :text)
┌────────┐
│ Col. 1 │
├────────┤
│      1 │
└────────┘