[pdftex] Tilde character in url.

[Ross Moore]

Hi Andres, and John,

On 10/04/2010, at 5:29 AM, Andres Lahe wrote:

> John Culleton wrote:
>>
>> On Friday 09 April 2010 14:08:02 Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
>>>
>>> On 9 April 2010 John Culleton wrote: > In plain pdftex I am  
>>> typing the following url: > \url{http://www.tux.org/~milgram/ 
>>> bookland} > {http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland} > > The  
>>> problem is the tilde character. TeX persists in treating it >  
>>> either as an unbreakable space or as an accent over the following  
>>> > character. The tag \tilde only works in math mode and again it  
>>> > wants to be on top of the next character. The tilde is an  
>>> active character. \bgroup\catcode`\~=12 \url{http://www.tux.org/ 
>>> ~milgram/bookland} {http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland} \egroup  
>>> You can also try \~{}. The empty group prevents TeX from putting  
>>> it over the following character. Regards, Reinhard
>> First thanks to those who responded. The problem is not just  
>> printing the character but also passing it on to the local web  
>> browser. Your first solution, with the \catcode change enclosed in  
>> \bgroup \egroup etc. is the one that works. The second suggestion  
>> with \~{} prints OK but does not reproduce properly in the url. I  
>> did not try Wouter's suggestions, since yours came first, and  
>> works :<) Now I have to republish the e-book wherever it exists :<(
> For pdflatex I use  \string~   \hyperbaseurl{http://staff.ttu.ee/ 
> \string~alahe/konspekt/myCD/}
> and it works: http://staff.ttu.ee/%7Ealahe/konspekt/myCD/ 
> opik_eme_html.pdf

There is a good solution, which has not been mentioned yet.
It is due to Donald Arseneau, back in 1996,
using the  \urldef  macro defined in his package  url.sty .

In your preamble load packages and make declarations as follows:

\usepackage{url}
\urldef\konspektURLpdf\url{http://staff.ttu.ee/~alahe/konspekt/myCD/ 
opik_eme_html.pdf}

  ... specify further URLs here ....

\usepackage[... options...]{hyperref}

Now in the body of your document you can simply use:

  \konspektURLpdf

to get an active URL, properly typeset.


There is no messing around with catcodes or other fake character
constructions in the body of your (La)TeX source, and even long URLs
break in appropriate places.

Beware to make all your uses of \urldef come *before*
loading  {hyperref}  because then \url  gets redefined,
and the   \urldef\<cs-name>\url  sequence will no longer
work as designed within  url.sty .
However, the attached .tex file shows how even this limitation
can be easily overcome.

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Any suggestion to use the %7E syntax within (La)TeX documents
is fraught with danger --- of course using  \%7E .
Imagine what would happen if the user forgot to escape the % !!

The processing would most certainly fail and the error messages
would be totally incomprehensible to most users --- even if
they bothered to look at the .log file or console.
Traffic to mailing lists would sky-rocket, following adoption
of such a policy.



> Andres
>


Hope this helps,

	Ross

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                       ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                           office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                             tel: +61 (0)2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia  2109                          fax: +61 (0)2 9850 8114
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