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List:       lyx-users
Subject:    Re: Automagically reduce the spacing between "++" in the word "C++"
From:       Andre Poenitz <andre.poenitz () mathematik ! tu-chemnitz ! de>
Date:       2008-10-22 22:00:49
Message-ID: 20081022220048.GC5391 () tu-chemnitz ! de
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On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 05:44:58PM -0400, rgheck wrote:
> Andre Poenitz wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 09:22:35PM +0200, Andre Poenitz wrote:
>>   
>>>> I think that I remember to have read about so-called  catcodes (or  
>>>> whatever?) in TeX, which apparently make it possible to declare 
>>>> certain characters as "active" so that further processing is 
>>>> possible whenever the TeX scanner reads such character. I wonder if 
>>>> it is possible this way to declare in the preamble that
>>>>     "C" followed by "+", followed by "+"
>>>> is "active" and should be inherently substituted with something 
>>>> like  "\mbox{C+\hspace{-.5ex}+}}"
>>>>       
>>> Quick shot: [...]
>>>     
>>
>> Somewhat improved version:
>>
>> \def\plus{+}
>> \catcode`\+=\active
>>
>> \def\smallplusplus#1{\raisebox{0.6ex}{\tiny\plus\kern-.3ex\plus}}
>> \def+{\futurelet\nextchar\pluss}
>> \def\pluss{%
>>   \ifx\nextchar+%
>>   \let\next\smallplusplus%
>>   \else%
>>   \let\next\plus%
>>   \fi%
>> \next}
>>
>> And no, I can't explain it.
>>
>>   
> If you could, I'd be really worried about you. ;-)


Since I started to waste the evening with TeX, the final version:

   \def\plus{+}
   \def\gobble#1{}
   \catcode`\+=\active

   \def\checknextchar{%
     \ifx\nextchar+%
   	   \raisebox{0.6ex}{\tiny\plus\kern-.3ex\plus}%
   	   \let\next\gobble%
     \else%
   	   \plus%
   	   \let\next\relax%
     \fi%
     \next%
   }

   \def+{\futurelet\nextchar\checknextchar}

It starts getting readable, so I better stop now.

Incidentally, I stumbled across  htlatex  and start to wonder whether 
this would be a good start for  tex2lyx.  It is able to process the
macros above...

Andre'

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