Ignoring pdftex primitives (Re: BOUNCE Michael John Downes)

[Taco Hoekwater]

Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
(this was Michael talking, yes?)

> Space must be accepted as a filename terminator if you want to follow
> the example of \input. Better, however, would be to devise a different
> filename syntax for all filename handling and leave \input etc as
> deprecated but still working alternatives. I.e., make some new file
> handling primitives:
> 

Another approach that closely mimicks what typical operating system
shells do is to allow the argument to be quoted, as in

\input "My Document"

I don't have much sympathy for people that use spaces (or quotes, for
that matter) in filenames, but everything is better than the annoying
tilde construction M$ uses:

\input MYDOCU~1

Try passing that as an argument to a macro...

In any case: please, please, please don't invent more "basic
keywords". There are way too many of those already.

> 1. \interject{File Name}

I like the idea, but not the name. What about 

\source{file name}  % shell
\require{file name} % perl/emacs
\include{file name} % cpp, but problematic for latex I guess
  
> 2. \openfile read 5{File Name}
>    \openfile write 8{File Name}
> 
> These are replacements for \openout and \openin with syntax similar to
> \hbox to 5pt{...} or \write 16{...}. Naming: Maybe \fileopen instead
> of \openfile.  Maybe keywords "in" "out" instead of read/write.

Maybe no keywords and two primitives?
 
> 4. \pdfimage height 3cm {File Name}
> 
> with height/depth/width specs going before the open brace.

This is good too.
 
Greetings, Taco

-- 
Taco Hoekwater                                 taco.hoekwater at wkap.nl
Kluwer Academic Publishers                            -- Pre Press --
Achterom 119, 3311 KB Dordrecht, The Netherlands  tel.  31-78-6392550
---------------------------------------------------------------------