[XeTeX] Unicode-named macros in XeTeX

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Bogdan Butnaru wrote:

> However, I’m not satisfied with the way em-dashes behave in this
> setup. I’d like to define a macro that does what I want (e.g. control
> spacing and line breaking around the dash), but I want to call by just
> typing an em-dash, i.e. just “—” instead of “\dash”.
>
> I anticipate the problem of having to actually generate the em-dash
> character instead of recursively calling the em-dash macro inside the
> macro, so please mention this if you have a solution for me, but I’m
> already stumped at the “how to call a macro ‘—’” part.

Can't help with the "How to type one", because for me that remains
the least accessible part of Unicode, but "how to call a macro" is
easy.  Let us pretend (for the purposes of this e-mail) that | is
the Unicode em-dash (it's actually a solidus here : I hope it is
also one when it arrives).  Then all you need is the following

	\def \emdash {whatever}
	\catcode `\| = \active
	\let | = \emdash

Philip Taylor