TeX, LaTeX and Friends

6:55 AM

@egreg here you mentioned "never mix xstring with xparse", did you mean never use the two in conjunction? Or just, don't confuse them?

egreg

7:11 AM

@Skillmon There's usually no need for xstring when xparse and so expl3 are loaded.

Joseph Wright

@egreg Particularly now we have regexes as-standard

David Carlisle

@JosephWright I managed to get undefined command \ttfamily :(

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle ?

TeXnician

Is it normal that if I edit a tag wiki I get a counter value next to "review" on the site, but if I click on it there's an empty queue? I thought my edits would not "count" for that.

David Carlisle

plain tex missing file, flips to draft mode and \rlap{ \ttfamily\expandafter\strip@prefix\meaning\@tempa}% wondering about adding ttfamily to graphicx.tex

Joseph Wright

7:19 AM

@DavidCarlisle Ah

David Carlisle

8:10 AM

@JosephWright I presume it's always done that but I should probably do something about it anyway, but I don't want to put a guard for that in the main graphics code so I was thinking of just adding it to graphicx.tex (rather than miniltx)

Skillmon

8:22 AM

@egreg So basically it does no harm, but is just unnecessary?

David Carlisle

@Skillmon it probably makes the code more obscure so that's harm in software maintenance terms. the expl3 code is a lot clearer about what works by expansion and what doesn't, and so how things may be combined.

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle thanks for the clarification

David Carlisle

@egreg do you get latex3-commits mail?

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Yes

David Carlisle

@egreg shame:-)

egreg

8:36 AM

@DavidCarlisle Are you referring to github.com/latex3/latex3/commit/… ?

CarLaTeX

@TeXnician I don't think it's related with your edit, you can't approve your own edits. Probably there simply was another edit that was approved just at the same time as you clicked.

David Carlisle

@egreg nope, one a few minutes ago that made me think of you for some reason...

samcarter

@CarLaTeX @TeXnician If your reputation is over a certain threshold, this counter does not only show Q/A which you can review, but all Q/A which are under review -- so essentially becomes useless as you will never now if there is is something for you to review or not unless you clicked on it.

egreg

@DavidCarlisle I only see this one: github.com/latex3/latex3/commit/…

CarLaTeX

8:59 AM

@samcarter Thank you for the info, I didn't know that!

egreg

@samcarter The “annoying brown square in the top bar”?

samcarter

@egreg Yes, exactly this one

David Carlisle

9:15 AM

@egreg you've got mail

Paulo Cereda

10:03 AM

@CarLaTeX You are mean!

Moriambar

@CarLaTeX it's exactly my experience

CarLaTeX

10:20 AM

@PauloCereda :P

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda who isn't?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh

CarLaTeX

@Moriambar I haven't tried Vim yet (only few Vi commands at work)

David Carlisle

Finally I've mastered this expl3 syntax thing: \def\num#1{\def\tmp{#1}\regex_replace_all:nnN{,([0-9])}{.\1}{\tmp}\oldnum{\tmp}‌} I'm sure @UlrikeFischer will be impressed

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

Johannes_B

10:28 AM

@JosephWright tex.stackexchange.com/users/134714/hernanproust same user as santimirandarp i guess. The utf8 thing was asked yesterday and got deleted. @DavidCarlisle

Moriambar

11:12 AM

@CarLaTeX why should you try? :P

CarLaTeX

11:48 AM

@Moriambar I wanna test which one is better: )

Moriambar

12:02 PM

@CarLaTeX I see. I found out that TextMate is what I need (on the mac) while Notepad++ is the best for what I need to do with simple text at work on a pc. Of course I use other IDEs for programming

Skillmon

@CarLaTeX you should definitely try VIM, imho.

@CarLaTeX or maybe gVIM if you can't go without a mouse and cursor :)

SBM

Hello

Hope you had a nice day

IDEs ...

CarLaTeX

12:24 PM

@Moriambar In general, I use Notepad++, I think it's simple but powerful. I use also TeXstudio and I think it's the best among the LaTeX dedicated editors. I'm not accostumed to Emacs yet, but, for what I have seen till now, I like it. However I'd like to test also Vim to build my own opinion about the topic :)

@Skillmon That's my intention, ^^^ :)

SBM

Vim has so many shortcuts, that you might find them useful but you won't remember most

CarLaTeX

@SBM A hot topic!

Paulo Cereda

Hot pocket

hmmm

SBM

Summers are gone, but still yes maybe

Hot pockets ... What? Are you alright?

CarLaTeX

@SBM I'll tell you when I test it :):):)

SBM

12:32 PM

School starts overmorrow

CarLaTeX

@SBM In Italy they ends in a fortnight

SBM

Oh, I still don't know how to pay for college

Skillmon

@SBM there are a lot shortcuts, but most of the time you only need a small subset which is easy to remember.

David Carlisle

@Skillmon esc : q is only one you really need

SBM

Yes, you'd only remember that much

Skillmon

12:42 PM

@DavidCarlisle it's esc :q!

SBM

That's for forcing it to quit

:wq

David Carlisle

@SBM the best thing you can do from vim!

Skillmon

because you'll most likely have altered the text accidentally and don't know how to undo your changes

SBM

It's the first text editor with a tutorial that I have encountered

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle do you by any chance use that operating system called emacs, which lacks a dedicated texteditor?

David Carlisle

12:44 PM

@Skillmon why isn't it C-xC-c like any normal editor?

SBM

Was thinking <C-x><C-o>

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle esc :nmap <C-c> :quit<cr>

@DavidCarlisle and esc :nmap <C-x> :quit<cr>

now you're good to go

@DavidCarlisle because vim is better than any 'normal' editor. Perhaps vim is the only truly normal editor out there :)

and if you want any keybindings you can easily configure them

David Carlisle

@Skillmon better put this in your shell alias vim=emacs

SBM

Or use #define true false in your C++ programs

Skillmon

I tried your code, but now I get the following when I try to start vim: zsh: command not found: emacs

David Carlisle

12:51 PM

@Skillmon strange partially setup computer

Skillmon

you just should use nmap : i in your vimrc

@DavidCarlisle why? Because I think Linux is a good enough operating system and I don't need another called emacs?

Moriambar

@CarLaTeX I use TeXStudio and TeXworks for TeX.

David Carlisle

@Skillmon I've been using emacs for longer than linux existed, so too late to change ways now

SBM

You program in VS?

Vim script?

David Carlisle

@SBM if you mean a specific person by "You" you should ping them like @SBM or use the reply arrow (as this one is in reply)

Skillmon

12:57 PM

@DavidCarlisle the advantages of being young. I didn't have to choose a bad editor, I could use a good one and a nice operating system from the start (well there was my childhood, when I thought Windows was good, but I was stupid back then)

SBM

Oh okay

CarLaTeX

@Moriambar Both good!

David Carlisle

@SBM you didn't use the reply there either:-)

@Skillmon well I'm young compared to egreg:-)

SBM

@DavidCarlisle now did I realise it?

Moriambar

@CarLaTeX I stand corrected: TeXShop

David Carlisle

12:59 PM

@SBM look at the left of the comments they have an arrow which links back to the comment that you are replying to, also if you hover over a reply comment the initial comment highlights

SBM

Best, use notepad for tex

Skillmon

@SBM best use word for tex

David Carlisle

@SBM notepad is good if you like working with both hands tied behind your back while someone is hitting you over a head with a stick.

2

CarLaTeX

@Moriambar TeXShop is for Mac, I have Windows, I can't try it.

David Carlisle

@Skillmon even that would be better than notepad:-)

Moriambar

1:01 PM

@CarLaTeX Of course, but I fortunately have invested in a mac back in the day and it is where I mainly use LaTeX ;)

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle while true, it definitely would, it's macabre.

SBM

@DavidCarlisle It's the text editor which makes you regret your existence

Skillmon

@Moriambar you could install Linux or Windows on your Mac

(but don't go for Windows)

Moriambar

@Skillmon windows I don't like that much. Linux is worse, I don't like it even more. It's like a giant vim :P

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle I do not know your nor egregs age.

@Moriambar and that's why Linux is better. But you could go for one of the distros shipping with Gnome or KDE.

@Moriambar I run Arch Linux with the Awesome window manager. Therefore, yes my entire setup is like vim. It's effective and not wasting my time.

Moriambar

1:05 PM

@Skillmon I used linux from around 2000 to 2010 (for some time alongside windows. I tried different distributions and such, but I don't like it at all, I think that it shows the reasons why it's free... I think the Mac is the best thing I've ever bought, especially in terms of os

SBM

I remember my school's windows 98 powered labs

Moriambar

@Skillmon I hate vim, I'm sorry. I'm not a nasty emacs user, but I don't like it at all.

Skillmon

@Moriambar well, if it's not your piece of cake it isn't. For me it's nearly perfect.

(both Linux and vim)

@Moriambar I simply cannot work in Windows (every time I try I miss like every feature of Linux). I don't have much working time on Mac, but the time I had wasn't that good

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon Oh do you use Awesome? I had a machine with i3wm. :)

Moriambar

@Skillmon I understand, for me it's the other way around: whenever I used vim I was not productive, whenever I used linux I missed many windows features. With the mac I feel I have the best of both worlds. Anyone has his or her habits and needs, and it's good to find the best working environment

Skillmon

1:11 PM

@PauloCereda never used i3wm. Is it easy to adapt to your needs?

SBM

@Skillmon which distribution?

Skillmon

@SBM Arch

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon depends on your rage level. :) I barely used it, to be honest, but I found the idea very appealing.

Skillmon

@Moriambar which features of Windows could one miss? $MFT?

SBM

@Skillmon have heard about it, I thought you were making an LFS

Skillmon

1:13 PM

@SBM while appealing I do not have the time for that right now and my Arch setup is running for quite a while right now.

Moriambar

@Skillmon I could say the same about linux. But I think it's a pointless discussion. I don't miss windows anymore, being forced to use it for work. I miss my mac

SBM

Sadly, I've got to stay with Windowd

Skillmon

@Moriambar while the second question is not meant serious, the first one is. Which features did you miss? I'm interested.

@Moriambar I fear the time when I'm working for a company which forces me on Windows :)

Moriambar

@Skillmon I missed many software which were not available on linux; also my wireless card was not working under linux so I had to connect my laptop through my desktop pc to have connection. Many features I had on the pc were missing

Skillmon

@Moriambar well the hardware issues of the past really were annoying, I can understand that

Moriambar

1:17 PM

@Skillmon well I have (like almost everyone else) a pointless job I hate, but it pays the bills (and it's relatively nice paid according to Italian standards). I work with microsoft technologies, so windows is always in the way

SBM

@Moriambar at least you have a job

I don't even have one

That's why I'm worried about college fees

Moriambar

@SBM of course and I'm grateful for that; I don't like it but many don't, and I cannot regret neither the hours nor the pay, so I think I'm kind of lucky

Skillmon

@Moriambar well I'm an engineering student, so no one can force me to use Windows as long as I get the stuff done. But I do not know what happens after my studies and who I'll work for.

Paulo Cereda

Friends, I need some enlightment with minipage's.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{listings}
\lstnewenvironment{mpython}{\lstset{%
   language=Python,
   frame=lines,
   basicstyle=\ttfamily,
   columns=flexible,
   showspaces=false,
   breaklines=true,
   breakatwhitespace=true,
   showstringspaces=false
}}{}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.25\textwidth}
\centering
Mathematical representation $\Rightarrow$
\end{minipage}\hspace{1em}
\begin{minipage}{0.6\textwidth}
\[ \bar{x} = \frac{x_1 + \ldots + x_n}{n} = \frac{1}{n} \Sigma^n_{i = 1} x_i \]

I wonder how I could align the second part of the figure, the one with the listings part. Any suggestions?

David Carlisle

1:32 PM

@PauloCereda you have a top aligned one on the left and a vertically centred one on the right?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle Oh I had no idea of what I have done, it was late in the night. :) I added the [t] modifier to see how the minipage looked.

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda How do want to align it? Which parts should align to each other?

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer ooh hold on

SBM

We could use programming languages with LaTeX?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda yes but it's normal (but not forced of course) to specify teh same alignment on adjacent minipages?

@SBM answer must be yes but I don't know what you mean. (Tex for example is a programming language)

Paulo Cereda

1:37 PM

@DavidCarlisle That's what I initially thought, but then things went wrong.

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer: I wanted them vertically aligned, but I only managed to get that through \vspace's, and it seems wrong.

Ulrike Fischer

What should happen if the code has say 4 lines?

Paulo Cereda

When I think I managed to get the gist of minipage's, something like this happens. :)

Maybe the verbatim thingy of listings is the one to blame?

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda I'm confused. Does this mean that you don't want this to happen?

@PauloCereda No, but you shouldn't forget the frame. It changes the placement of the baseline too.

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer I wanted the adjacent minipages to be centered aligned. :)

@UlrikeFischer I tried without the frame, it still behaves the same.

Actually, wait.

Oh it gets better.

@UlrikeFischer: you are absolutely right, I had no idea the frame would change the baseline.

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer: case closed, problem solved. :) Sorry for the noise. :)

@UlrikeFischer ^^ it looks great, thank you!

@DavidCarlisle ^^ at last some real code for my thesis. :)

David Carlisle

1:58 PM

@PauloCereda real code = fortran

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle will you pay me a beer in TUG 2018 if I include a Fortran code?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda perhaps, if you promise not to use vim between now and then.

@PauloCereda extra bonus points for XSLT

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@DavidCarlisle OOOH

daleif

troll troll

4

Paulo Cereda

@daleif But @DavidCarlisle is old.

egreg

2:15 PM

@PauloCereda \Sigma instead of \sum?

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda I think he has more or less my age, hence he is very young!

@egreg @PauloCereda Heresy!

Paulo Cereda

@egreg OH MY, I FORGOT

@egreg Thanks, I completely forgot about \sum. Since I use \Sigma almost all times, I used it by default. Please forgive me!

@CarLaTeX /quacks in despair

@CarLaTeX <3

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda <3 <3 <3 :):):)

David Carlisle

@CarLaTeX not only that, I'd never use \Sigma for \sum

3

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle ;-)

Paulo Cereda

2:28 PM

@DavidCarlisle you are mean

Moriambar

@DavidCarlisle who, in a sane state of mind wou... ehm oops :P

yo'

@barbarabeeton Hello! Please, is it possible I recieved tb38-1 as late as this week?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda clearly you struggle with English, you've been using that form of greeting quite often, although it's not that common a salutation.

2

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle <3

@yo' Tom!

barbara beeton

@yo' -- that's rather late. i'll check with robin. @PauloCereda and @JosephWright -- can you tell tom when yours arrived?

yo'

2:37 PM

@PauloCereda hi there!

@barbarabeeton (it's possible it got lost somewhere here you know..., however, the address seems clear and correct so it's rather strange)

Paulo Cereda

@barbarabeeton No, it hasn't arrived yet. My last was 37:3.

samcarter

@yo' I got mine only yesterday -- maybe a continental Europe phenomena?

yo'

@samcarter if it were a continental Europe phenomenon, I would come visit @Paulo ASAP!

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ooh

barbara beeton

3:03 PM

@yo' -- just checked when i received it. editor's copy received april 17 (that's a special shipment). regular delivery was waiting when i got back from the tug meeting on may 9. (it hadn't arrived before i left on april 27.) since there's usually only about a week, and sometimes less, between those two, i think delivery of 38:1 is rather slower than usual. but i'll check with robin, as i said.

@samcarter -- would you be willing to say where you're located?

samcarter

@barbarabeeton Southern Germany

@barbarabeeton If a more precise location would help, I can sent it to you via email.

yo'

@barbarabeeton no need to worry really, I was just curious whether there's something wrong on my side

David Carlisle

@JosephWright see this tex.stackexchange.com/questions/372408/what-use-is-tectonic looks vaguely interesting but wonder how you can MIT licence a project when chunks of the included source are GPL...

SBM

@Moriambar Like could you use another programming language say Java in TeX

Sorry I didn't know, I just checked wikipedia

TeXnician

@SBM Engineering student? And you don't know MIT?

David Carlisle

3:17 PM

@yo' is that the TB with a long paper on \emergencystretch and one about lwarp?

barbara beeton

@samcarter -- that's close enough. thanks.

SBM

@TeXnician Sorry, I'm just a school student, and no I didn't know before searching Wiki

barbara beeton

@yo' -- it seems like everything is slow this time.

yo'

@DavidCarlisle yep I thinkso

SBM

I'm quite sad that I didn't

David Carlisle

3:20 PM

@yo' got mine several days ago can't remember exactly but could probably check at home if anyone remembers when it came

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- definitively, yes.

David Carlisle

@SBM MIT is a pretty famous college but actually the connection with the college is purely historical here: the "MIT licence" is one of the more common open source licences but combining it with software licenced under GPL can be tricky as the licences aren't really compatible.

SBM

@DavidCarlisle Oh, I wish I got to study there now

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter ooh Deutschland

SBM

@PauloCereda Germany?

Paulo Cereda

3:25 PM

@SBM Ja

SBM

@PauloCereda Ja? Yes?

I don't know if it meant that

Paulo Cereda

@SBM Yes, ja, oui!

SBM

@PauloCereda oui? I'm such a rookie.

Paulo Cereda

@SBM Oui is French. :)

SBM

@PauloCereda Unfortunately, I do not know any language except English, Hindi, Odia and Sanskrit

I might say au revoir after sometime

Paulo Cereda

3:29 PM

@SBM You already know more languages than I do. :)

SBM

though

samcarter

@PauloCereda Wir haben viele Enten in Deutschland :)

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter ooh I understood Enten. <3

SBM

@samcarter Is that Deutsch?

samcarter

@SBM Yes it is.

Paulo Cereda

3:30 PM

@SBM Ja.

(here we go again)

SBM

@PauloCereda Danke

samcarter

@PauloCereda You could count programming languages, too.

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda बतख को हिंदी नहीं समझता

SBM

@DavidCarlisle Did you google translate that? It's not even good enough to be considered awful.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ^^ THAT was mean

@samcarter that would be unfair. :)

David Carlisle

3:33 PM

@SBM oddly enough that's what Paulo says when I write in Portuguese (from a similar source:-)

TeXnician

@PauloCereda The language of thesis writing?

Paulo Cereda

@TeXnician that would be a secret. :)

@DavidCarlisle On the contrary, the Portuguese you write is quite good, sometimes odd, but we get the general idea. :)

SBM

@PauloCereda All the best for your thesis. I'm trying to help my dad with his.

Paulo Cereda

@SBM Thank you!

SBM

Could you use Java in LaTeX ?

David Carlisle

3:52 PM

@SBM you can call out to external programs written in anything including java but only essentially reading the output of the java as a file. to really program within tex you need to use tex, or if using luatex you can use Lua

egreg

@PauloCereda In ginocchio sui ceci!

Paulo Cereda

@egreg roger that

Skillmon

4:26 PM

Yay, I finally managed to get over 200 rep a day :)

now I can rest in peace

SBM

@DavidCarlisle Thank you! :)

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle what about Python? I thought there was a project which injects python...

David Carlisle

@Skillmon now you need to aim for the "Legendary" badge.

Skillmon

I'm a bit disappointed, that it's only a bronze badge, though.

(the Mortarboard)

David Carlisle

@Skillmon there is a pythontex project but as far as I know it really manages python as an external process like R/knitr manage R, if you want an embedded language then luatex it is (or learn to like tex as a programming language:-)

Skillmon

4:29 PM

@DavidCarlisle well, my badge-collection isn't that impressive...

David Carlisle

@Skillmon you need more one-line answers with pictures taken from wikipedia

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle what do I get from that?

David Carlisle

@Skillmon from one such question, two gold badges, over 400 votes and over 500pt bounties:-)

468

A: How can I explain the meaning of LaTeX to my grandma?

It does this but it uses a computer and so requires less manual labour. (image from Wikipedia)

SBM

Oh

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle I think for a programming language that is created for text, it has relatively weak text parsing capabilities, but other than that I do much using TeX and nothing (until now) with expl3 and the like

David Carlisle

4:33 PM

@Skillmon well I wrote an XML parser in it:-) (implementing every production in the XML spec)

SBM

@DavidCarlisle Interesting

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle one of the upvotes you got for that wiki-answer was from me :)

David Carlisle

@Skillmon number of votes is inversely proportional to the effort taken to answer the question. But that's the way the site works:-)

SBM

@DavidCarlisle Really?

Steven B. Segletes

Calling @barbarabeeton, your edit of my answer at tex.stackexchange.com/questions/145695/… seemed to have gone awry. I haven't been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

David Carlisle

4:43 PM

@SBM not completely untrue: a silly easily understood answer such as the above often gets dozens (or in that case hundreds) of votes. But if there is a tricky technical issue that takes two weeks to debug then far fewer people are interested or understand what the issue is and so don't vote. It is not unreasonable but it can be funny sometimes looking at the answers ordered by votes

5

SBM

@DavidCarlisle I see the only two/three answers which I've ever written without any effort on SE have allowed me to chat here

David Carlisle

@StevenB.Segletes (@barbarabeeton) fixed, I think

barbara beeton

@StevenB.Segletes -- oops! sorry! (i see that @DavidCarlisle has fixed it. i lost one of the leading spaces on a code line.) i do wish that the management would pay more attention to our request for assistance!

Steven B. Segletes

@DavidCarlisle Thanks, though there was still a missing backslash, but it was more obvious what was happening. Thanks @barbarabeeton, too.

@DavidCarlisle I'm not legendary yet, but I do have a gold symbols badge, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night (US humor).

Skillmon

@SBM you have to earn the privilege of chatting here?

@DavidCarlisle well you got the vote because the answer was funny and correct, not because you didn't put any effort into it.

SBM

4:58 PM

@Skillmon Yes I had a repuation of 1 before that answer

about that three lettered dictionary reference

word

14

A: Pronunciation of "xe" and "xyr"

Xe is more like /zi/ as it seems. Same with xyr. References: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xyr https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xe

Skillmon

5:21 PM

I just saw, that egreg's missing the 'student'-badge.

Moriambar

@SBM I don't understand what you mean

CarLaTeX

@Skillmon He and David have never asked a question!

ShreevatsaR

At this question: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/372299/… the asker gets different line breaks than three other people using newer and older distributions. Not sure whether this sort of thing is normal…

David Carlisle

@ShreevatsaR never believe the original poster:-)

4

Paulo Cereda

5:41 PM

@ShreevatsaR Hi Mr. Velociraptor

Skillmon

@CarLaTeX yeah, it was just a funny moment for myself realizing that fact...

CarLaTeX

@Skillmon :):):)

Manuel

Hi chat.

Paulo Cereda

@Manuel Aloha!

Welcome to the specTeXcular chatroom!

Manuel

Why does this A \mathchoice{=}{=}{=}{=} B space the math as a \mathrel?

I mean, it's nice to have that behaviour, but I did not expect the “boxes” that \mathchoice makes to be transparent. Where does that intelligence come from?

Hi @PauloCereda

Apart from that, any relatively recent news about expl3 (or LaTeX3 in general) any new innovations/implementations in the last few months?

Moriambar

5:52 PM

@Manuel I think because the first item is a Rel atom, then the others are picked as alternatives. I cannot try now, but see if \mathchoice{d}{=}{=}{=} spaces the same

(it could also be that they space as the atom type of the specific symbol included in the {s)

Manuel

@Moriambar No, I mean that the spacing from inside translates outside. Of course if inside it's \mathrel or \mathbin I mean that that spacing is correctly taken outside. But I thought four boxes were typeset.

Moriambar

@Manuel you mean you thought that each one of the symbols would translate to a separate math list?

I think mathchoice gets the symbol itself substituted, but perhaps there's something more subtle going on (eg page 290)

Skillmon

@PauloCereda I think you should leave for that pun.

2

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon you are mean /sob

Manuel

@Moriambar I always read that it typesets the four things and then chooses the right one afterwards, but if it depends on the outside and it's not a blackbox, then TeX is not exactly typesetting each box. So what's it doing?

Moriambar

6:06 PM

@Manuel Yes it typesets all four items, but then chooses the right one. What it's actually doing I don't know. Believe me I would dig into this but do not know where to look

{the letter A}
{blank space  }
{\mathchoice}
{math mode: the character =}
{end-group character }}
{the character =}
{end-group character }}
{the character =}
{end-group character }}
{the character =}
{end-group character }}
{display math mode: blank space  }
{the letter B}

this is all I got

@Manuel ^^^ vvv

\mathord
.\fam1 A
\mathchoice
D\mathrel
D.\fam0 =
T\mathrel
T.\fam0 =
S\mathrel
S.\fam0 =
s\mathrel
s.\fam0 =
\mathord
.\fam1 B

@Manuel so yes, the element inside each pair of braces gets selected with its specific math type

Joseph Wright

6:30 PM

@DavidCarlisle Hmm, also it's not exactly a build system, more of a wrapper around XeTeX

David Carlisle

@JosephWright not a wrapper is it, I only had a quick look but as far as i can see they have the sources for xetex and xdvipdfmx as C and are planning to gradually convert them to rust.

@Manuel well you wrote boxes in quotes because you (correctly) guessed that they are not really a box

@Manuel it sets each branch as a "subformula" essentially as if it was typeset at that place in the appropriate style so what is saved are four "math lists" so when an actual box is generated at the end as described in @Moriambar's favourite appendix just one of those math lists gets unpacked into the hbox being built.

Moriambar

@DavidCarlisle :) Appendix G, Yay!!!

Joseph Wright

6:45 PM

@DavidCarlisle Oh for goodness sake

David Carlisle

@JosephWright Tectonic has been forked from the old-fashioned WEB2C implementation of TeX and is developed in the open on GitHub using modern tools like the Rust language.

@JosephWright so what I think they have done is taken the web2c output then cleaned that up by hand to be more maintainable C then started changing that as they see fit. If it passes the trip test I'll be amazed:-)

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle I'll mail you :)

ShreevatsaR

7:08 PM

@DavidCarlisle Good point :-) But I looked at the attached sample.log and it does look believable, including an "Overfull \hbox (173.22874pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 40--42" line that I don't expect to be faked… Ah but now I notice the listings.sty is from 2002 and there's even a lstpatch.sty; that probably explains the diff.

BTW how good is the trip test?

If a TeX implementation passes the trip test would it be generally accepted by most of the TeX community as a "valid" TeX?

Joseph Wright

@ShreevatsaR Well applies to pdfTeX, XeTeX, pTeX and upTeX ...

David Carlisle

@ShreevatsaR it's not so much whether that it's good or bad but that you can't call something tex unless it passes. It is a large collection of weird constructs that DEK thought worth testing but I've no idea whether anyone has ever tested if it has any reasonable code coverage of the tex source

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Indeed: I wonder if LuaTeX passes

David Carlisle

@ShreevatsaR also the fact that pdftex in dvi mode with the e-tex extensions disabled passes the trip test is of mostly academic concern since no one uses it set up that way.

ShreevatsaR

7:23 PM

@DavidCarlisle Thanks, yes that's what I was asking.

David Carlisle

@JosephWright its log file isn't close enough to even ask the question

ShreevatsaR

I get the impression that all "new" typesetting systems that aim to replace or enhance *TeX are doomed to fail, because the "market" is small -- the only way any of them can succeed is to be distributed with a major distribution like TeX Live and be available on everyone's computers, then at least there's a chance that a few may try it.

Well this Tectonic has its own installer so someone could try it I guess… the other constraint is that everyone's existing LaTeX files must compile and give the same result

David Carlisle

@ShreevatsaR I don't think they are aiming for the "user writing his thesis" typesetting at all so much as the "embedded pdf generation component on some larger software stack" Using tex as such a typesetting component is always a pain as it really wants to communicate via a commandline not any API and wants to write lots of small files all over the place which is tricky if you are some embedded cloud based thing with no filesystem....

ShreevatsaR

true... makes sense

I read somewhere that ConTeXt was designed to be good for such automatic typesetting

David Carlisle

@ShreevatsaR @JosephWright is our context mole. I know nothing.

Joseph Wright

7:36 PM

@ShreevatsaR Yes, that's how Hans et al. actually make their living

barbara beeton

8:55 PM

@DavidCarlisle -- i've just encountered a question where some carriage returns not involving backslashes have been removed: tex.stackexchange.com/q/146590 this was obvious from the length of the code lines displayed on the screen and the alignment of the code in the edit box. (i've fixed it, so maybe not so obvious now.) how do we make this known to the management? resulting code in not wrong, but it's awfully hard to read with lines so long.

samcarter

9:08 PM

@egreg @PauloCereda Is the checkcites script capable to deal with biblatex? [asking for tex.stackexchange.com/questions/372104/… ]

David Carlisle

@barbarabeeton but is there any evidence that it wasn't like that originally (lots of new userrs mess up code block formatting)

@JosephWright geometry again :( (texlive list)

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- well, the original code doesn't show the line breaks now, but i don't know anyone who is able to space out so many code "phrases" so uniformly that if a return is put in at the "logical" locations, they line up very neatly. the only way i could do that reliably is to put in the returns in the original, and then take them out to make the lines run in. (and you know i'm pretty paranoid about clear alignment.)

David Carlisle

9:38 PM

@barbarabeeton yes I'm sure the line breaks were in the ops original file but it wouldn't be impossible that they were lost while posting incorrectly. Basically the powers are sluggish enough addressing incontrovertible corruption, I wouldn't want to distract them with possibly unrelated corruption or possible user error unless there was stronger evidence that it's the same thing.

egreg

@samcarter No.

@Manuel TeX prepares four math lists and then uses the one for the actually needed style

David Carlisle

@egreg as I wrote:-)

egreg

@DavidCarlisle Just got back from a dinner, no time to read everything

@DavidCarlisle I had bigoli with duck sauce

David Carlisle

@egreg you should have had faith. In that case you probably also missed someone querying one of my translations

@egreg hopefully @PauloCereda won't see that.

Moriambar

Is there an easy way to access the current chapter name (eg, for headings)?

egreg

9:52 PM

@Moriambar Usually \chapter sets \leftmark

David Carlisle

@Moriambar in the default setup no (the chapter heading is responsible for setting the mark for the page heading so the string isn't available outside that) but there are several *ref packages that change things

Moriambar

@DavidCarlisle @egreg yes, I needed something custom but just after asking here I found the memoir part of the manual where it is exactly explained how I need it. Thanks

David Carlisle

@Moriambar @egreg did you know memoir had a manual? I'v never heard of such a thing.

Moriambar

@DavidCarlisle without it the class is completely useless. Perhaps with it it's useless the same, but I find it perfect for my needs.

David Carlisle

@Moriambar it has a source code:-)

Moriambar

9:58 PM

@DavidCarlisle ah, I hate programming/source code and I have to deal with it all day long while at work :P. I have more than I can think of "pleasant" already :P.

egreg

10:09 PM

@DavidCarlisle I seem to recall some rumors

Moriambar

10:20 PM

@DavidCarlisle actually it proved pointless and not working, but it's late to seek for an answer on the site. It's better to become grumpy and not sleeping to solve it :)

David Carlisle

@Moriambar just like @egreg

Moriambar

@DavidCarlisle well I have to ask here more often since it proves to find either my solution or to make me learn something. I did both now!

Gustavo Mezzetti

10:56 PM

@Moriambar See Rule 4 (in your favorite appendix).

@Manuel As @DavidCarlisle has already (somewhat tersely) explained, the four branches of a \mathchoice are not “typeset” when the command is encountered, in particular, they are not put into boxes: they are simply recorded in a “four-ways-choice” node that is appended to the current math list.

You can see this node in the transcript that @Moriambar posted: it’s where it says \mathcoice D\mathrel D.\fam0 = etc.

When the math list is converted to a horizontal list (and not before), TeX chooses one of the four recorded choices, according to the current style, effectively replacing the \mathchoice node with it. So, in your example, A\mathchoice{=}{=}{=}{=}B effectively becomes A=B.

After the substitution has taken place, TeX continues with its usual processing, thus recognizing = as a Bin atom put between two Ord ones.

David Carlisle

11:13 PM

@GustavoMezzetti I'm sure you meant efficiently and expertly rather than tersely

Gustavo Mezzetti

So, to make another example, A\mathchoice{=}{+}{,}{,}B would become A=B (Ord Rel Ord) if eventually typeset in display style, A+B (Ord Bin Ord) if typeset in text style, and A,B (Ord Punct Ord) otherwise.

@DavidCarlisle “Tersely” isn’t deregatory, is it? It can well encompass the meaning of “efficiently” and “expertly”—or is my English defective?

Of course, what I meant above was “thus recognizing = as a Rel atom put between two Ord ones”.

David Carlisle

@GustavoMezzetti in that context it's probably not exactly complimentary (although in fact it was accurate, I was only joking with my rephrasing:-)

Gustavo Mezzetti

@DavidCarlisle Well, I too, actually, was teasing @Moriambar, claiming that he didn’t read “his favorite appendix” with sufficient attention! ;-)

David Carlisle

@GustavoMezzetti we should all stick to German and put everything on an equal footing with language nuances

Gustavo Mezzetti

“Equal footing”? And the Germans themselves? What about Latin, rather?

David Carlisle

11:29 PM

@GustavoMezzetti they've all gone to bed:-)

Gustavo Mezzetti

@DavidCarlisle Yes, and now I’m going as well. Have a good night!

David Carlisle

@GustavoMezzetti good night

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends