How to format Gmisc::htmlTable - r

Question

Below is an rmarkdown document that can be pasted into rstudio.
My problem is that output from htmlTable is prepended/appended with cruft from the htmlTable attributes.
---
title: "SO_question"
author: "AC"
date: "Wednesday, May 28, 2014"
output:
html_document:
theme: readable
---
My heading
============
This is a few tables. Notice that `htmlTable` prints `[1]"` before each table and `" attr(,“class”) [1] “htmlTable” “character” [1] “` after each table. How can I avoid this?
``` {r html_table, results='asis', echo=FALSE, message=FALSE}
library("htmlTable")
library("reshape2")
#Chick weight example
names(ChickWeight) <- tolower(names(ChickWeight))
chick_m <- melt(ChickWeight, id=2:4, na.rm=TRUE)
for (i in unique(chick_m$diet)) {
diet <- subset(chick_m, diet==i)
table_to_print <- dcast(chick_m, time ~ variable, mean)
print(htmlTable(table_to_print, rgroup=c(""), n.rgroup=nrow(table_to_print)))
}
```
Bonus question: How to format the last row in each table as bold text (suited for a 'total' row)?

Answer 1

Rather than using print on your htmTable, use cat to properly render it.
for (i in unique(chick_m$diet)) {
diet <- subset(chick_m, diet==i)
table_to_print <- dcast(chick_m, time ~ variable, mean)
cat(htmlTable(table_to_print, rgroup=c(""), n.rgroup=nrow(table_to_print)))
}

Answer 2

There is a print.htmlTable function that is called when a print is performed on an object from the htmlTable function. It should automatically call the cat, not sure if this was true May '14 but it works today.
In the 1.1 version of the htmlTable-package (the function was separated from the Gmisc-package) there is a total option:
for (i in unique(chick_m$diet)) {
diet <- subset(chick_m, diet==i)
table_to_print <- dcast(chick_m, time ~ variable, mean)
print(htmlTable(table_to_print, total=TRUE))
}
Note: You do not need to specify the rgroup element if you are not using it.
#author