# [pstricks] Glue oddity with \pstVerb

Christoph Bersch usenet at bersch.net
Wed Aug 27 09:38:53 CEST 2008

Hi Michael,

Michael Sharpe schrieb:
> It appears that \pstVerb does something odd to glue suppression inside
> a pspicture.

As far as I understood the code, glue suppression is not an issue of the
pspicture environment, but every macro has to care for it itself. The
only glue-related code in the pspicture definition is the \KillGlue,
which acts as a switch to enable or disable the functionality of
\pst at killglue.
The problem is the line end after \def\myx{2} which is not 'killed' by
the \pstVerb. \rput (more specifically \rput at iv) contains a
\pst at killglue and thus gets rid of the preceeding space.

Equally do all drawing macros (like \pscircle) contain a \pst at killglue
which is incorporated within the \begin at ...Obj macros.

However, I can't tell you, what the real difference between two
consecutive \def's (in which case all glue is removed) and one \def and
a \pstVerb is (the case you showed):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pstricks}
\listfiles
\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}(-.5,-.5)(6.5,6.5)
\psgrid[subgriddiv=0,griddots=10]
\def\mxx{1}
\def\myy{3}
\pscircle(2,4){1}% no displacement
\def\myx{2}
\pstVerb{ /Xcoor 2 3 mul 2 sub def }
\pscircle(4,4){1}% shifted
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

Even if maybe not fully answering your question, I hope to clarify some
'glueing' issues :-)

Christoph