Re: behavior of @math with HTML output

[Gavin Smith]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 09:27:22PM -0500, Jacob Bachmeyer wrote:
> Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > On 2022-10-14 11:30:33 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > > On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 12:40:08AM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > > > On 2022-10-13 21:15:57 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > > > All of them are buggy:
> > > >   * Concerning t4h,
> > > >       @math{@var{base} \le 16},
> > > >     yields "@varbase ≤ 16 ,", so @var doesn't work (while it is needed
> > > >     to ensure exactly the same typography/code as outside @math, e.g.
> > > >     <var>base</var>) and there is a spurious space before the comma.
> > > In my experience, t4h is the one that tries harder to use characters
> > > for simple math and often succeeds.  Images are still used when it
> > > becomes too complex.  It is probably the best for your use.  As you have
> > > noticed, however, t4h only knows about TeX, not Texinfo.  It is actually
> > > said in the manual that @math should not contain Texinfo commands, in
> > > line with the 'recent' better handling of TeX/LaTeX:
> > > "In general, the contents of @math or @displaymath should be plain TeX 
> > > only, with no interspersed Texinfo commands."
> > 
> > I assumed that this was for commands that exist in plain TeX, which
> > is not the case of @var.
> 
> Since "var" actually is a TeX macro (Texinfo works by adjusting TeX's
> configuration to make @ introduce commands, like backslash does in plain
> TeX), would the correct syntax be "@math{\var{base} \le 16}" for the example
> above?

No, "plain TeX" means the plain TeX format of Donald Knuth.  It does
not include Texinfo commands like @var.  If @math{\var{base} \le 16} does
work then this is only by accident, and it will only work with texinfo.tex 
not anywhere else.