TeX, LaTeX and Friends

7:47 AM

No bug, but documented feature. — egreg 37 mins ago

@egreg is there a difference?

2

Harald Hanche-Olsen

8:08 AM

@DavidCarlisle In this case, I would call it a documented bug. It's not an uncommon occurence in early day unix man pages: It a bug is too hard to fix, it is documented so people can know to work around it. But it's still a bug.

Sebastiano

GOOD MORNING TO ALL USERS. ASTA LA VISTA.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I wouldn't know. My code only has features.

@DavidCarlisle :)

@JosephWright 3 down 1600 to go in new email thread

@DavidCarlisle Indeed

@DavidCarlisle Like I've said, if we really want to talk about this ...

8:23 AM

Personally I like the whatwg licence

github.com/erlang/otp/wiki/Writing-good-commit-messages

Ooh, might link to that

@DavidCarlisle There's no difference between bug and undocumented feature. As far as documented features are concerned, who reads manuals anyway?

2

@egreg Developers to make sure they can say it's not a bug ;)

Ulrike Fischer

8:43 AM

@JosephWright I always have very good commit messages, like "still not finished, but better make a backup" or "damn, forgot again to change the version date" or "some changes" and "more changes" ;-)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

9:35 AM

@UlrikeFischer :) Me too. So long as you haven't pushed to a remote repository, I recommend git commit --amend for some of those cases. Or you can quash several commits into one after multiple of those “backup” commits.

Most Satisfying Video of Pop-Up Cards designed by Peter Dahmen

@JosephWright do you know Erlang's motto?

►

Harald Hanche-Olsen

9:55 AM

@egreg I have to admit, I did read a substantial portion of the TeXbook before I even had access to TeX …

10:29 AM

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I too. :-)

10:46 AM

@DavidCarlisle: hmmm RG is asking about your publications again... :)

11:13 AM

@PauloCereda if you hit j often enough in thunderbird you stop seeing their messages

@DavidCarlisle ooh :)

@DavidCarlisle I can add being-mean to your skill suggestions. :)

11:43 AM

@PauloCereda I think you meant you-are-not-mean didn't you?

@DavidCarlisle ooh we can have both

@PauloCereda not forgetting interesting-duck-recipies

@DavidCarlisle you are mean

4 mins ago, by David Carlisle

@PauloCereda I think you meant you-are-not-mean didn't you?

@DavidCarlisle ooh a new quote

11:48 AM

@PauloCereda oh

@DavidCarlisle o.O

barbara beeton

1:53 PM

@egreg -- trying to process the file in https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/396041/ it fails (using tex live 2016) with
! Undefined control sequence.
<argument> \ifdefequal
can you possibly identify the particular changes that may have been made before or since to make this happen?

parvin

hello !

does anyone know about grammar (computer science) ?

I need getting general information and an overview about it as soon as possible

i remember there was a page in stack for that, but i can't find it

@parvin Well, that's a very broad field...

@parvin which kind of grammar?

parvin

I have no idea, I'm studying this book about automata theory

Grammars are useful models when designing software that processes data
with a recursive structure The best known example is a parser􀀀 the
component of a compiler that deals with the recursively nested features
of the typical programming language􀀀 such as expressions arithmetic􀀀
conditional􀀀 and so on For instance􀀀 a grammatical rule like E 􀀀 E E
states that an expression can be formed by taking any two expressions
and connecting them by a plus sign
this rule is typical of how expressions

--------------------
this is a part of it, it's not explaining very well

so i want to know more about it

on the internet every thing is explained as if i'm familiar with grammar in CS
and i'm not

Hello, has anyone tried to add hyphenation rules to a language babel doesnt have hyphen rules for ?

2:04 PM

@parvin For me it's rather clear. A grammar is the part of a formal language you use to define it (so that the formal language is not as silly as a natural one would be).

@parvin You can think of the parser e.g. as your calculator. It evaluates an expression that's known to him (e.g. 1+1), because it has the grammatical construct of addition.

@parvin Grammar is a way for you to specify a language. It tells how a sentence of a certain language is built.

@PauloCereda Sentence/word. Some people take that very serious...

@barbarabeeton \usepackage{etoolbox} fixes that but I don't know what changed

@TeXnician Ah yes. :) I do not remember the correct name in English. In Portuguese, it's in the tip of my tongue. :)

parvin

i see , so in CS they define some rules for it and then use it in, for example, compilers, right?

2:07 PM

@alfred lots of people that's why texlive now has more than one hyphen table:-)

:) nice

@parvin Yes, a very popular example is the BNF or the syntax diagram you'd use to describe a specific grammar. This grammar can then be used by a parser or compiler.

S = A "is" "a" B .
A = "John" .
A = "Peter" .
B = "lawyer" .
B = "potato" .

@DavidCarlisle is it difficult ?

@parvin Yes, in theory. But programming languages are in general context-sensitive. We treat it as context-free because it's easier. :)

2:08 PM

@PauloCereda I guess it's a very bad representation of alternatives (if that's meant when specifying one thing twice).

@alfred there are too basic ways either you get a big dictionary of hyphenation points (often by asking nicely to a dictionary publisher) and then use patgen to compress that list into some patterns, or if the language has a sensible grammar and hypheation rules (so not at all like English) then you can directly write some patterns matching those rules.

@PauloCereda Don't you usually use type 1? Type 2 is sooooo boring (nearly as boring as the z's in pizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzza).

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- yes it does. thanks. (this problem hasn't hit us, but it potentially could. i want to be ready for it.)

@TeXnician rewriting systems in general represent that as a binary relation. :)

@TeXnician do you treat context syntactically?

It's very possible, but quite complicated. :)

@PauloCereda I do not treat context at all as I'm a LaTeX user ;)

2:11 PM

@TeXnician LOL :D

/whispering @TeXnician: I think we scared that bloke... :D

@PauloCereda I guess so. Maybe he was right about the wrong place to ask :)

@DavidCarlisle It's the second scenario, I consulted someone on what the hyphenation rules should be and have a pretty clear idea.

@DavidCarlisle I get the feeling we are the sensible people ;)

@JosephWright unfortunately that is a universally held opinion

can anyone point me to an example of a file containing hyphenation rules, maybe for italian

2:18 PM

@TeXnician :D

@DavidCarlisle :)

@TeXnician on a more serious note, I really enjoy Wirth's notation. :)

@alfred it's easiest to test in luatex actually as then you can just test in a document all you need is \newlanguage\something \language\something \patterns{aa1bb ac2b4d} \showhyphens{zzzaabbzz} and see a hyphenation point in zzzaabbzz

@alfred try:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

% english
\showhyphens{zzzaabbzz}

\newlanguage\something \language\something
\patterns{aa1bb ac2b4d}

%new language
 \showhyphens{zzzaabbzz}
\end{document}

which shows that tex finds zzza-ab-bzz with the default US-English patterns and zzzaa-bbzz with the patterns specified for the new language

LEGO Lawnmower Man Kinetic Sculpture

►

@DavidCarlisle ^^

@PauloCereda I'm currently mostly working with ABNF. Wirth's notation was not in the focus of my learning when talking about grammar.

2:22 PM

@DavidCarlisle are you suggesting to find a language that has my patterns ?

@TeXnician cool, I remember ABNF. :)

@DavidCarlisle See email

@PauloCereda I especially like its repetition pattern min*max(to repeat). That's handy at many places.

@TeXnician I am a level below. :)

@PauloCereda 1*3(i have to repeat this) = (i have to repeat this)[i have to repeat this][i have to repeat this]...

@PauloCereda I'm very lazy ;)

2:26 PM

@TeXnician <3

@alfred No I showed there a definition of a new language together with its hyphenation rules. That is exactly what you need to do for a new language, although typically with more patterns in the \patterns command. (by the way I just saw your question on the main site, if it's related to this you shoudl edit it, the version on the main site is not clear enough to be answered really)

@DavidCarlisle It is related and yes I know it's not clear

@alfred if you want help with an error message you should always show a complete small document (like the one I used above) that makes the error

@barbarabeeton Add \usepackage{etoolbox}. I think Claudio added compatibility with showidx at a time xpatch was loaded automatically, which it isn't any longer.

mwe yes I know, I thought people who would understand what I was talking about knew who to answer but it's not right. I will edit the question in a few hours

shouldnt the hyphen rules for italian be in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\babel-italian\italian.ldf

2:41 PM

@alfred actually it's easy to see how to fix that error (you need to define the language patterns as I show above) but I can't remember what you have to do wrong to get the error.

@barbarabeeton tex.stackexchange.com/questions/396041/…

The \ifdefequal problem is a small bug, add \usepackage{etoolbox}. But showidx has been doing that all the time. — egreg 20 secs ago

@alfred italian.ldf doesn't contain hyphenation patterns, which must be loaded at format creation time (except for LuaTeX).

where are these blessed hyphenation patterns ..

@alfred /usr/local/texlive/2017/texmf-dist/tex/generic/hyph-utf8/

@alfred in luatex these can be loaded in a document as you specify a new language but in tex/pdftex/xetex the patterns can only be loaded when the format is made, which is why I said it was easier to experiment with the pattern syntax in a small luatex document

translated C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\generic\hyph-utf8\patterns\tex\hyph-it.tex in windows I suppose, thanks

can't make head nor tail of the patterns in italian for the moment

barbara beeton

@egreg -- thanks. also for the (probable) explanation.

2:56 PM

@DavidCarlisle Sorry, I couldnt foolow you code example for LuaLaTex, can we get to private chat ?

@alfred did you take the document and process it with lualatex?

absultely, and replaced something with a language name

result was as you said zz-zaab-bzz and zzzaa-bbzz, but I didnt understand what to do next

@alfred no run it as is with no changes

ok

done

@alfred that was a trivial language with just two patterns but one of them encourages hyphenation between aa and bb in any word containing the substring aabb and that is what you see in the second \showhyphens

@alfred so for a real language you just need to do the same but with more patterns. see

3:08 PM

yes I got it now aa1bb 1 means -

Q: how to implement customized hyphenation patterns

5

I created a file with nonstandard hyphenation patterns of my own, but I do not know how to force LaTeX into using my patterns instead of the default ones. I am using Linux Mint, with pdflatex to compile my '.tex' files. I discovered a dumylang option and a dumyhyph.tex file, meant for "testing n...

@alfred 1,3,5,7,9 encourage hyphens at that strength 2,4,6,8 discourage them

thank you

classically you have to build a new format each time you change the patterns but luatex lets you do it directly in the document which is not so useful in real production but useful for testing

I think I have enough to start working on this

I have another question, related, in another relation if I use \hyphenrule{nohyphenation} and \sloppy how I can add letterspacing for the whole document ?

in another direction*

3:29 PM

@alfred no idea:-) I don't think I know \hyphenrule is that babel? and I'm not sure I have seen a document that is letterspaced for the whole document. If you use xetex/luatex then you can specify letterspacing when declaring the fonts

ok, I'll try that. Yes I suppose it is babel

do you think it will allow for variable letterspacing or a fixed value

\lsstyle seems fixed at some value

@DavidCarlisle Thanks for you patience. This was really helpful.

4:58 PM

Quack!

@PauloCereda Quack!

@JosephWright ooh another duck

5:25 PM

2

@PauloCereda ^^^^^^^^

@egreg ooh :)

6:21 PM

@PauloCereda We have definitely infected @egreg, too!

@CarLaTeX You will become a Juve fan? :)

@PauloCereda I don't care about football :)

@CarLaTeX oh no

@PauloCereda she sticks to cricket

@DavidCarlisle oh

6:25 PM

@DavidCarlisle I know nothing about cricket :)

@CarLaTeX neither do I, but like pineapple pizza it's a rule that it has to be mentioned.

@DavidCarlisle I don't know why but it doesn't seem a cricket rule to me :)

Mar 6 '12 at 14:09, by David Carlisle

@PauloCereda, @RoelofSpijker, @egreg, new house rules: for every line discussing football, needs to be one discussing cricket

@DavidCarlisle And for every line discussing pineapple pizza?

@CarLaTeX ... you should go out and eat one.

6:32 PM

@DavidCarlisle Thank God it's impossible to find in Italy :P

tripadvisor.com/…

@PauloCereda good man:-) (or duck)

@DavidCarlisle quack :)

@PauloCereda In Meran they are German :)

@CarLaTeX I am confused. :)

6:36 PM

@CarLaTeX Austrian!

@JosephWright Notlob!

@PauloCereda They speak German in that part of Italy

@PauloCereda Just been past Ipswich on the train ;)

@JosephWright ooh :D

@PauloCereda Ops... same language, however

Ulrike Fischer

7:08 PM

@egreg wrong team (and not enough ducks)

7:26 PM

@UlrikeFischer ooh

Skillmon

8:28 PM

@UlrikeFischer I really like the Fohlen-duck!

8:49 PM

can anyone help adding hyphen patterns for a language babel doesnt have them yet, I am trying but it's a headache

I hate ducks

Nils Holgersson was lame

9:07 PM

see the comments in wherever miktex puts /usr/local/texlive/2017/texmf-var/tex/generic/config/language.dat

9:25 PM

found it finally, it was in C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9\tex\generic\config
for some reason my windows wasnt indexing ProgramData

it has no line for the language I am trying

I suppose I should add a line for the file contained in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\generic\hyph-utf8\patterns\tex

btw, I am still far from having a hyph-xx.tex, I am having pattern conflicts and I dont know how to convince latex no to put characters without a vowel in the next line

@alfred you should probably put your files in a local tree (but I don't know miktex's layout) editing the files under the tex distribution control will confuse the package manager and they are likely to be lost if you update anything,

@alfred but as I say I would get your hyphenations patterns debugged first worry about babel integration at the end. use luatex or a simple plain tex wrapper without babel

I am lost

Hey anyone already faced the problem that TexShop is able to compile but command line latex is not?

9:40 PM

@alfred start from the document I posted earlier and get the patterns working in that document, worry about babel integration only after the patterns are working

@Felix.C not possible:-)

I thought so too, but...
DiskreteMathematik.tex:2: LaTeX Error: File `scrartcl.cls' not found. [^^M]

Perhaps the path is messed up?

@Felix.C that is, a tex editor lie texshop just calls some commandline command in a shell behind teh scenes so if it is working for the editor, if you typed the sam ething to teh commandline that would work too

I am still trying one time, copying paterns from italian and adding a hyphen.tex for my language

@DavidCarlisle That's what I thought too...it's very strange

I switched from TexShop to Sublime but it won't work not even with console

@Felix.C well usual reason for that is you have two tex systems installed and your default commandline path is picking up the wrong one or (possibly less likely) you have the right tex in your path but TEXINPUTS is defaulting incorrectly.

9:44 PM

how would I check that out? Many thanks for the help btw :D

@alfred well, basic scheme is that you need to add a line to language.dat and then rebuild the latex format (if you are using pdftex or xetex)

@Felix.C if you use a simple article.cls hello world docuemnt does that work?

language.dat has lines like italian loadhyph-it.tex and the files I have are hyph-it.tex

there is a loadhyph-it.tex in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\generic\hyph-utf8\loadhyph

@alfred the load-- files are wrappers that handle any utf8 encoded characters in the fike, if you only need ascii that's not needed or if you only needed odftex and latin1 you can avoid it as well, There is some documentation of the utf8 hyphenation schem setup I'll find a link

@alfred tesdoc hyphenation brings up

@alfred texdoc.net/texmf-dist/doc/generic/hyph-utf8/hyphenation.pdf

I shouldnt use babel if I do this then

@DavidCarlisle Command line latex does not even compile this example:
http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~yogi/Courses/CS-Scientific-Writing/examples/simple/simple.htm

But I figured texshop uses another path^^

9:56 PM

@alfred yes but no point worrying about babel until the patterns for your language are done and it's easier to test them without. Only you (with language knowledge) can do that part. Integrating with babel can be a simple matter of mailing the babel maintainer and saying you have patterns for language xxx and could they be included.

right

babel (xelatex) still says it doesnt have the patterns, but i guess that's normal, I dont see the same message with lualatex

problem with doing patterns for my language is I am getting compatibility errors I dont understand. so I thought I could start from italian

@alfred you need to rebuild the format for xetex each time your edit the patters

How do you do that

everybody seems to use linux here

@alfred mktexfmt in texlive no idea about miktex

@alfred no (I'm on windows for example) but most tex developers use texlive rather than miktex

we go back to mailing the babel maintainer

there is a MiKTex package manager, but it only allows to update from a repository etc

10:12 PM

@alfred From the GUI (MiKTeX Settings) you can choose 'Rebuild formats'

@alfred MiKTeX knows many of the same command line things as TeX Live

@alfred yes same in texlive

Is it rather Refresh FNDB ?

@alfred That's for updating the list of files, not the formats

Right, it was Update Formats

no I'm still getting the same babel warning ackage babel Warning: No hyphenation patterns were preloaded for the language `Xxx' into the format.

@alfred in all this time you've never shown any code so it's hard to guess what you are doing wrong but I can only repeat my suggestion to worry about babel later, making the patterns is likely hard (only a few dozen pattern files have been produced in 30+ years of tex usage) and testing with luatex or a simple plain tex format makes more sense than rebuilding latex/pdflatex/xelatex/lualatex every time you edit

10:21 PM

I will post a question at some point providing code. This was just a test

a long one it will be

I just hate that babel message

@alfred the site works better with simple one issue questions (the issues surrounding adding a language to babel are completely separate to issues about the syntax for \patterns for example

I am afraid to ask now, but shouldnt the ldf file had been modified somehow

I would have thought it was the root from where babel took the information

@alfred modified? I thought you were adding a new language in which case you need a new one, but the ldf file does not refer to the hyphenation patterns as (as said before) they can not be loaded into a normal tex run they have to have been preloaded into the format

going back to creating the patterns, from what i understand from the italian example, they use typical word endings to tell where the word should be cut

no in this case there is some babel support for the language, it contains things like chapters, months and days mostly, but there is no hyphenation

@DavidCarlisle Good attempt at bad typography. But the tick goes, of course, to the most elegant solution. :-P

10:37 PM

also containing mistakes btw

@egreg no justice

@alfred which language

albanian

done by a german from what i can tell

@alfred Quite difficult language to hyphenate, as far as I know

@alfred you don't need to edit ldf file to add patterns as it says at the top

\ifx\l@albanian\@undefined
    \@nopatterns{Albanian}
    \adddialect\l@albanian0\fi

you just have to keep a vowel in the segment, not separate double consonants (diagramma) and some diphthongs

honestly I would be happy if it just used syllables

10:49 PM

@alfred which means that currently \l@albanian will not be defined so you get the warning message you don't like and then it makes it use language 0 (which is english hyphenation) so if you build a format with a language.dat that does have albanian, l@albanian will be defined and babel will use the patterns

@DavidCarlisle I dont understand that, does it say that if it's undefined, then dont use patterns ?

ok

@alfred it says if it is not defined make the warning message that you said you didn't like, then use american english patterns

I thought it didnt use anything at all because of the 400 bad boxes, but ok

so what we did should have worked

@alfred i don't know what it looks like but I guess it doesn't look like English:-) (to the pattern matcher)