stack size

[Heiko Oberdiek]

At 11:14 24.11.1999 +0100, Peer Rappolt wrote:
>How to increase the stack size of TeX ?

texmf.cnf: stack_size
After changing you should rebuild the formats.

Before changing you should check, whether the cause is not a wrong
written recursion:

\documentclass{minimal}
\newcounter{dummy}
\setcounter{dummy}{500}
\newcommand{\bsp}{%
  \ifnum\value{dummy}=0
    \typeout{end of recursion}%
  \else
    \typeout{\thedummy}%
    \addtocounter{dummy}{-1}%
    \bsp
  \fi
}
\begin{document}
\bsp
\end{document}

This example is limited to the input stack size. There are two tricks
to avoid this:

1. With the \expandafter trick the \if construct is finished before
   the next recursive call of \bsp
\newcommand{\bsp}{%
  \ifnum\value{dummy}=0
    \typeout{end of recursion}%
  \else
    \typeout{\thedummy}%
    \addtocounter{dummy}{-1}%
    \expandafter\bsp
  \fi
}

2. Often it is not possible to use \expandafter. For example, it is
   not possible to jump over an unknown number of tokens, introduced
   by #1, #2, ...
   In this cases the ReturnAfter(Else)Fi-Trick can be used:

\newcommand{\bsp}[1]{%
  \ifnum\value{dummy}=0
    \typeout{end of recursion}%
  \else
    \ReturnAfterFi{%
      \typeout{\thedummy}%
      \addtocounter{dummy}{-1}%
      \bsp{#1}
    }%
  \fi
}
\def\ReturnAfterFi#1\fi{\fi#1}
\def\ReturnAfterElseFi#1\else#2\fi{\fi#1}
\bsp{Text}

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek@ruf.uni-freiburg.de>