[texhax] white space problem

[Tom Schneider]

> > Seems that I'm the person.  But I don't know how to read the code
> > enough to make an appropriate change.  If you know how, I'd much
> > appreciate it.
> 
> The only change I see from basic (old) LaTeX is the change of "," 
> to ";" so one solution is to grab the current definition of cite
> (\@citex specifically) from latex.ltx and put it in cell.sty (.cls?) 
> but changing the "," to ";".

Ok, I found that ...

> This might bother users of very old LaTeX versions by introducing
> incompatabilities though.

Ok, won't do that ...

> > > \usepackage{cite}
> > > \renewcommand\citepunct{;\penalty5000\ }
> > > or
> > > \renewcommand\citepunct{;~}
> > 
> > You mean I should add this to the cell.sty?  Exactly what change
> > should I do?
> 
> I was thinking of in your document, after cell.sty, to over-write 
> the definition with a functioning new one.  But yes, it would be 
> quite sensible to replace the cite definition with loading another
> package like "cite", which should relieve the burden of tracking
> changes to LaTeX.  Use \RequirePackage or \RequirePackageWithOptions  
> rather than \usepackage.  Check that the features meet the cell
> requirements.

Ok, I modernized cell.bst and cell.sty using cite.  Thanks for your
help!

http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/ftp/cell.sty
http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/ftp/cell.bst

> > > And if bibtex were anything but apparent abandonware, it would have
> > > been changed to ignore spaces after commas many years ago.
> > 
> > Isn't it a key part of the LaTeX system???
> 
> Yes, and it hasn't been maintained properly.

:-(

  Dr. Thomas D. Schneider
  National Institutes of Health
  schneidt at mail.nih.gov
  toms at alum.mit.edu (permanent)
  http://alum.mit.edu/www/toms