TeX, LaTeX and Friends

10:27 AM

@DavidCarlisle Re Leslie's report: I guess his expectations about Bézier curves is wrong

\setlength{\unitlength}{5pt}
\begin{picture}(0,50)
%\qbezier(46,37)(30,26)(34,28.8)%bad
\color{red!20}\qbezier(46,37)(30,25)(34,28.8)%
\color{red!30}\qbezier(46,37)(30,25.2)(34,28.8)%
\color{red!40}\qbezier(46,37)(30,25.4)(34,28.8)%
\color{red!50}\qbezier(46,37)(30,25.6)(34,28.8)%
\color{red!60}\qbezier(46,37)(30,25.8)(34,28.8)%
\put(34,28.8){\circle{2}}%
\put(34,28.8){\circle{5}}%
\end{picture}

Joseph Wright

@egreg :)

egreg

@JosephWright That's just because I'm going to lecture and don't know how to answer on gnats

David Carlisle

@egreg Leslie? Oh I better read my email....

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle I thought it was spam until @egreg mentioned it!

@egreg Have fun ;)

David Carlisle

@egreg just reply to the email, and change the CC to say latex-bugs@.. and latex-team@.. not the ones that it gets automatically

Ulrike Fischer

10:36 AM

@DavidCarlisle a glimpse in the luatex future (miktex next has now luatex 1.06): warning (font expansion): autoexpand not supported (I don't think that it is something to worry about but I asked Robert anyway).

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer Oh goody

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer I tried to build 1.06 the other day and the makefile failed, so haven't had time to debug why.

Ulrike Fischer

@JosephWright I really don't think that it is serious. There was a discussion in july between Robert and Hans, and if I got it right Robert wrote that "autoexpand" isn't making a difference in luatex anyway and so they probably removed the keyword. But at first I got a shock and thought that all expansion is gone ;-)

David Carlisle

1:23 PM

@egreg welcome to gnats:-)

daleif

1:35 PM

I consider writing a small column for a student magazine/paper about wrong uses of the command \text. A few relevant bad ones: \text{log}(A) \in \text{Mat}_n(R) and R_\text{max} (including the missing outer {}'s. Any other ideas for relevant examples of wrong uses for \text?

egreg

@daleif $A=\{x\in X:P(x)\text{ for some }P\text{ and }Q(x)\text{ whenever it's raining hard}\}$ , meaning long set descriptions with several words.

Joseph Wright

1:52 PM

@DavidCarlisle :)

@DavidCarlisle Just as we are looking to leave ...

@DavidCarlisle, @egreg Enjoying Chris's rumblings?

daleif

2:33 PM

@egreg ahh, yes a classic, put it all inside the \text, forgot that one, seen it a lot.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@daleif There is also the style issue: Sometimes, it is better to state in words that … $A$ is the set of $x\in X$ so that …

daleif

@HaraldHanche-Olsen exactly, but I think that is a little to broad for the context of this small article.

Ulrike Fischer

2:48 PM

@daleif as \text changes with the surrounding font imho there are not many places where it is semantically correct. You only need to show {\scshape $ a \text{ and } b $ }.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@daleif Got to admit, I have sometimes written stuff like \begin{cases}42x&\text{for } x>0\\…. It gives me a guilty pleasure of having done something I really shouldn't do, which still seems harmless enough. But apart from ignoring any \mathsurround in effect, does it actually have harmful side effects?

daleif

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I usually rewrite them to \text{for $x>0$} just because I like it better.

@UlrikeFischer exactly. I just adjusted a preprint/working paper for a Centre, where the authors used \text{Var} in the text and \text{\rm Var} if used inside a theorem. One of them actually got a bit mad when I pointed out how bad that was.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@daleif Unrelated, but if we're swapping war stories: I saw a paper in which the authors wanted to refer to a range of equations, like (3.4)–(3.7). In the rest of the paper, they used \eqref properly, but here, they used instead (sensitive folks should avert their eyes here) $(\ref{foo})-(\ref{bar})$ !

daleif

3:03 PM

@HaraldHanche-Olsen that is not too bad. I have an algorithm in my Emacs that converts all (\ref{foo}) to \eqref{foo}.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

3:28 PM

@daleif Yeah, but what really got me was the double whammy – also using math mode to get a longer dash …

daleif

4:03 PM

@HaraldHanche-Olsen did not even catch that one.

alhelal

5:42 PM

I invite you chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/67897/…

alhelal

5:54 PM

sorry, now I found the invite button.

Daniel Guldberg Aaes

6:18 PM

Hi guys. How will you go around writing an equation like this
```
\begin{align*}
C(45,3) \times C(57,4) \times C(69,(12-(3+4)) \\
=\frac{45!}{(45-3)!3!} \times \frac{57!}{(57-4)!4!} \times \frac{69!}{(69-5)!5!} \\
= 6.29940220356447 \times 10^{16}
\end{align*}
```

It seems impossible to make this equation beautifull......

egreg

6:33 PM

@DanielGuldbergAaes I'd use \cdot instead of \times (except for the last one)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
C(45,3) &\times C(57,4) \times C(69,(12-(3+4)) \\
&=\frac{45!}{(45-3)!\,3!} \times \frac{57!}{(57-4)!\,4!} \times \frac{69!}{(69-5)!\,5!} \\
&= 6.29940220356447 \times 10^{16}
\end{align*}
\end{document}

Here's the version with \cdot

@DanielGuldbergAaes Note \, between the two factorials

Skillmon

@DanielGuldbergAaes the braces are unbalanced in the first line. There is a missing )

A Gold Man

7:05 PM

can someone help me out with \scantokens?

Daniel Guldberg Aaes

Thanks guys! It sure does look alot cleanter in this way

@Skillmon nice spotted!

A Gold Man

I have input collected that contains end-of-line characters which have catcode 13

i'm trying to use scantokens to turn them back into normal ignored end-of-lines

and for some reason it stops when it reaches them instead of continuing

Harald Hanche-Olsen

7:45 PM

@AGoldMan From a bit of experimentation, it seems that a \scantokens pseudofile ends when it encounters a category code 13 ^^M.

{\obeylines%
  \gdef^^M{\message{*}}%
  \gdef\one{\message{foo bar}}%
  \gdef\two{\message{foo}
    \message{bar}}}
\two
\expandafter\scantokens\expandafter{\one}
\expandafter\scantokens\expandafter{\two}
\bye

@AGoldMan The penultimate line above produces only the message foo – in parentheses, indicating it happens within a \scantokens pseudofile.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

8:00 PM

@AGoldMan (Of course I am just repeating what you said, in more words. I was just trying to clarify the issue to myself (and maybe to others?).)

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda peabodymemphis.com/ducks-en.html

Alan Munn

@egreg The fencing side of the family is doing well I see. fie.org/media/news/629

A Gold Man

8:11 PM

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I'm aware of that as a bug in LuaTeX, but that's what I'm getting in XeTeX too

Also, i decided to change my code to avoid the issue

shouldn't these things be documented?

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan they are, more or less:-)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen @AGoldMan not the catcode, that doesn't matter the point is that ^^M is \endlinechar if you defined \endlinechar to be something else (eg 0) and and 13 to be \newlinechar instead then things would be different.

A Gold Man

8:39 PM

@DavidCarlisle I tried it with \endlinechar changed, but i'll see if newline changes things

well, it does

that's cool

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan oh did I get them the wrong way round i'm always doing that:-)

A Gold Man

Should I ask this as a question? I only found stuff about endline on the site, but not newline

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan newline is explictly mentioned in the primary documentaion for scantokens (texdoc etex) says ... In particular every occurrence of the current newline character is interpreted as start of a new line, and input characters will be converted into tokens as ...

@AGoldMan but this stuff is pretty obscure feel free to ask and self-answer if you have a nice example

A Gold Man

i totally did not understand from the documentation that newlines would get messed up

maybe I'm bad at reading

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan just read the same lines of the texbook every night for 30 years as you go to sleep and then it'll seem perfectly natural

A Gold Man

8:49 PM

@DavidCarlisle I like the part where he mentions there are jokes in the book

and about undending arguments

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan perhaps he'd seen @PauloCereda trying to argue that vim is an editor

A Gold Man

i would never say vim is an editor

it's like a piece of heaven

\end{joke}

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@DavidCarlisle But what seems to be the case is that these newline characters are treated as end-of-file in that circumstance? So there is magic here that I absolutely don't get.

@AGoldMan You're not alone …

A Gold Man

does TeX not have a special end-of-file character, so they just use the end of line?

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@AGoldMan The notion of an end-of-file character is rather ill defined, I think. @DavidCarlisle will surely correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know, TeX inserts a special token in the token stream when you reach end of file, and that token will trigger an error in certain circumstances, such as in the middle of scanning a macro argument.

David Carlisle

9:07 PM

@AGoldMan well I don't help vim users:-)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@AGoldMan I had to look this up, but my memory had it about right this time around: CP/M used ^Z as an end-of-file character in text files, because that operating system only recognised file lengths in multiples of 128 bytes. No modern operating system uses an end-of-file character. (Except, in some sense on terminal input, but that is something else.)

David Carlisle

@HaraldHanche-Olsen there is a file write and a file read, if you have character 13 and it is just not \endlinecharr then on the \write it stays as it is but on the read it comments out the rest of the line, because it has end of line catcode, but if you make it \endlinechar then the internal file buffer gets multiple lines and so teh ^^M does not comment out the rest of the line

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oi

@CarLaTeX ooh

David Carlisle

@HaraldHanche-Olsen no they are treated as end of line, try putting ^^M in the middle of a line in a normal document, it works like ` %` more or less

@PauloCereda .. or ducks

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle quack?

Harald Hanche-Olsen

9:15 PM

@DavidCarlisle Ah, got it. Subtle.

A Gold Man

many thanks for the explanation

notwithstanding my vim orientation

David Carlisle

@HaraldHanche-Olsen the thing that makes \scantokens really tricky is the entirely pointless end of file token that it does put at the end which makes using the tokens returned an error in so many cases. luatex has a \scantexttokens which is the same, but doesn't add the end of file marker, which is far more sensible but unusable in cross-engine code

A Gold Man

although, I'm fairly certain I live in a free country

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@AGoldMan free of what?

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan even in a free country some things are not allowed: driving on the right, murder, editing files in vi, ...

A Gold Man

9:17 PM

that is an excellent question

Harald Hanche-Olsen

If we cannot be free, at least we can be cheap. – Frank Zappa

3

@DavidCarlisle That rings a bell or two.

CarLaTeX

@HaraldHanche-Olsen What a pity puns cannot be translated :)

David Carlisle

@CarLaTeX Se non possiamo essere liberi, almeno possiamo essere economici

@CarLaTeX I have no fear of translating anything

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle But "liberi" doesn't have the same double meaning as "free": "Se non possiamo essere gratis, almeno possiamo essere economici"...

David Carlisle

@CarLaTeX don't bore me with details!

CarLaTeX

9:26 PM

@DavidCarlisle The joke doesn't work in Italian :P

A Gold Man

@DavidCarlisle why is there no LaTeX companion volume 3? I'm sure something new has come up in fifteen years

David Carlisle

@AGoldMan children?

A Gold Man

sounds plausible

Christian Hupfer

@AGoldMan Fixing features in longtable etc. needs time ;-) @DavidCarlisle

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle did you give birth?

David Carlisle

9:33 PM

@CarLaTeX I delegated some of the details

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle: may I quote this jewel from Victor Borge: I'd like to thank my parents for making this night possible. And my children for making it necessary.

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle So you were free to write the third volume :)

egreg

9:45 PM

@AlanMunn :-)

Paulo Cereda

10:05 PM

Just had miso soup!

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda Does it taste like pineapple pizza?

Paulo Cereda

@CarLaTeX heavens no. :)

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda OK, it must be good, then :)

Paulo Cereda

Miso soup

Miso soup (味噌汁, misoshiru) is a traditional Japanese soup consisting of a stock called "dashi" into which softened miso paste is mixed. Many ingredients are added depending on regional and seasonal recipes, and personal preference. == Miso paste == The choice of miso paste for the miso soup defines a great deal of its character and flavor. Miso pastes (a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and the fungus Aspergillus oryzae, known in Japanese as kōjikin (麹菌?), and sometimes rice, barley, or other ingredients) can be categorized into red (akamiso), whit...

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda Many ingredients are added depending on regional and seasonal recipes so it's like pizza!

Paulo Cereda

10:10 PM

@CarLaTeX :D

David Carlisle

10:39 PM

@PauloCereda usual ingredient is アヒル I think.

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