formatRef

A set of Scheme functions for formatting references in a TeXmacs document

This program is inspired by the LaTeX package prettyref.

Table of Contents

Description
Macros
Installation instructions
Example files
Testing of Scheme functions

Description

This program provides the macro formatRef (<formatRef|lab>) which formats a reference choosing in a list of formats saved in the global variable formatList. Each format is a list consisting of two members; the first member is a format code, which is a short string, while the second member is the corresponding format to apply to the reference. The function selects the format by comparing the format code with the beginning of the label: the first element of formatList that matches is selected and the corresponding format string formatString is applied to the TeXmacs reference.

The format strings should contain the character #. The reference will be substituted in the format string for all occurrences of the # character. For example, if the format string is

equation (#)

the reference obtained with the macro <formatRef|lab> looks like equation (<reference|lab>)

The labels must be assigned according to the format codes so that the macros have an effect. If no format code matches, the macro at the moment returns <reference|lab> but it does not distinguish between the no-match and a match that returns a string of zero length. In addition to the distinction, it could be nice to have a switch that chooses between <reference|lab> (as default perhaps) and nothing.

The .pdf file shows how the TeXmacs files look like after the Scheme functions have been loaded and the TeXmacs macros executed.

Macros

• <addToFormatRef|formatKey|formatString>
  • Adds the format key formatKey with corresponding format string formatString from the list of formats
• <replaceInFormatRef|formatKey|formatString|n>
  • Replaces in the n-th occurrence of the format with formatKey format key the given format string formatString
• <deleteFromFormatRef|formatKey|n>
  • Deletes the n-th occurrence of the format with formatKey format key
• <formatRef|lab>
  • Generates a formatted reference for item with the label lab

Installation instructions

The program consists of the following files:

• Style file

  • Formatted references.ts
  • Formatted references_setup.ts

• Scheme files

  • interfaceToTeXmacs.scm
  • manipulateList.scm
  • selectFormat.scm
  • formatRefUtils.scm

• Put the style files in the directory ~/.TeXmacs/packages or in a subdirectory of it (for example ~/.TeXmacs/packages/formatRef)

• Put the scheme files in the directory ~/.TeXmacs/progs/formatRef.

  • It has to be in this subdirectory as the style file is looking for the Scheme files there through the command <use-module|(formatRef interfaceToTeXmacs)>

After this, the Formatted references package will be available in TeXmacs under the menu Document->Style-> Add package. It will be possible to add format definitions using the macro addToFormatRef and use them with the macro formatRef. The style file Formatted references_setup applies the addToFormatRef macro to define several format keys and can be loaded in addition to the Formatted references package. Please note that in this version the format list is defined in the Scheme files using tm-define, and this means that the format list is the same for all TeXmacs documents.

Note: I did not figure out yet when exactly the definitions inside Formatted references_setup.ts become available in the document. One can always add more (or the same) definitions in the hidden preamble of the document.

Adding format keys (and warning - improvement is necessary)

In this version I am adding format keys through the style file Formatted references_setup.ts and apparently the addToFormatRef macro calls that I placed therein are executed only once. This arrangement works by defining the format list with tm-define (instead than with define) in the Scheme functions, and this means that it is the same in every TeXmacs document.

If the formatted references are presented “bare”, that is using the TeXmacs macro instead of the format string as set up by the Formatted references_setup style file, please try Tools → Update → Styles. If that too does not work, copy the macros in the Formatted references_setup style file onto the preamble of this file. In this case TeXmacs will issue error messages onto the command line, as macros that add formats are executed repeatedly, but the package will work (i.e. the package issues the error messages, does nothing—as it should—and the formatted references are presented correctly).

Example files

formatRef_examples.tm (with pdf output formatRef_examples.pdf). It uses Formatted references_setup.ts with format definitions for equations, figures, sections and tables.

Testing of Scheme functions

There is a simple function to issue tests with the following property:

• if the test is passed, the program is quiet
• if the test is failed, the program outputs a description of the test, the test command and the desired output

The test loads files from directories that are specified in an absolute way; I haven't yet figured out how to get Scheme to load files from directories specified with a relative path.

The tests can be run with scheme --quiet < testFormatRef.scm