Re: rethinking @def*

[Gavin Smith]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 11:14:06AM +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 04:44:17PM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > 
> > I don't see any hope of fixing this, so we have to do more protection,
> > perhaps outputting something like \texttt{a :\ b} instead of \texttt{a : b}.
> 
> The regexp you used misses the case of a punctuation at the end of a
> text element, followed by space in the next element, which happens in
> @def* arguments because the argument is 'parsed' and split in little
> bits of text with specific types.  I haven't checked, but a construct
> like the following may also be missed, although it depends on what LaTeX
> does in such a context:
> 
> @code{@var{?} a}.
> 
> Maybe also protect the first leading space in code context?  Would that
> be too 'invasive'?

Probably not, as it wouldn't appear everywhere, only where there was
a leading space.  It is only an extra \ in the output.

We could also protect trailing punctuation.  I believe this is the
problem you described:

@deftypefn Function {} foo (@var{one} @var{two?} @var{three})
ddddddddddd
@end deftypefn

The output currently has

\noindent\texttt{ foo (\GNUTexinfocommandstyletextvar{one} \GNUTexinfocommandsty
+letextvar{two?} \GNUTexinfocommandstyletextvar{three})}\hfill[Function]

which produces extra space after "two?". This could be fixed using \@, so

\noindent\texttt{ foo (\GNUTexinfocommandstyletextvar{one} \GNUTexinfocommandsty
+letextvar{two?\@} \GNUTexinfocommandstyletextvar{three})}\hfill[Function]

This wouldn't be too invasive either as we would not insert the \@ at the
end of all elements, only when they ended with the problematic
punctuation.