[tex-eplain] TeX--XeT

[Laurence.Finston at gmx.net]

It's not necessary to use | as the escape character.  Any character that you can type and reaches TeX as a value between 0 and 255 will do.  There can be problems if your editor automatically converts some special characters to 16-bit characters.  This can be a real pain in the neck.

Definitions don't just disappear.  If I define a macro using one character as the escape and then set the catcode of another character to be the escape character, then the macro still exists, but you need to use the new escape character.  I don't remember whether there can be more than one at a time;  I don't think so, but maybe there can.

A definition may disappear if it's defined locally.  Then it will only exist within its scope.

> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 25. Oktober 2023 um 16:48 Uhr
> Von: terry.s at Safe-mail.net
> An: Laurence.Finston at gmx.net
> Betreff: Re: [tex-eplain] TeX--XeT
>
> Thank you Laurence,
> 
> In addition to (hopefully) define a shortcut-and-wrapper-in-one, I just don't like typing \verbatim ... |endverbatim all the time (as opposed to, say, \verb ... |verb. I actually had a nearly-working implementation inspired by a 2005 eplain article defining |TeX to do the same as \TeX, to the point where it threw no more errors but wouldn't print "|" or "---" (solid) ... even printing one of those (I forgot), but I lost that implementation and got back to errors. (My bad, should have saved individual documents at each step.) The issue appeared to be the NEED to declare "|" an escape character for \def to even allow it (still required escaped: \def||verb{blahblah}) ... on reverting the catcode, the definitions that printed the original characters was NOT reinstated --- whereas the |TeX example which merely needs it *active* (not *escape*) did not have this issue of the original definitions getting lost. I was going to post the nearly-working source (it actually worked so far as opening and closing a verbatim environment is concerned). But I'm just not touching it any more now; it's not a priority; it's a wish-list/to-do item.
> 
> Terry S.