[XeTeX] footnotes and ArabXeTeX

[Nathan Sidoli]

Here is one for Vafa in your new capacity as maintainer of ArabXeTeX. 
Thanks for taking over this package! (I sent this to François some time 
ago, but I don't think anything has been done about it.)

In certain environments, there is some problem with the input which is 
controlled by ascii 'operators' such as ^ and _ and maybe some others. 
For example, ش is input as ^s, ذ is input as _d, and so on. The letters 
that are input using . seem to be unaffected.

The effect occurs in a number of environments, such as footnotes and 
pstricks figures (it doesn't occur TikZ, and this is good, but many 
people have legacy figures in pstricks). In these environments, the 
operators seem to be treated as some sort of mathematical operator and 
the compiler complains that a $ is missing and the file will not compile.

I have included a couple of minimal files, below.

------------------------------------------

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Junicode}
\usepackage[novoc,fdf2noalif]{arabxetex}
\newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.3,WordSpace=2]{Scheherazade}

\begin{document}

We have a footnote that contains the word 
\textarab{al-^skl}.\footnote{\textarab{al-^skl}.}
It is the \^\ \ in the asci input of \textarab{^s} that causes the 
problem. It seems that it is being read as an operator in an uncalled 
math environment.

This is also true of \_ in, used in, say, 
\textarab{_d}.\footnote{textarab{_d}.}

And maybe some of the other operators, but the . works fine, as in 
\textarab{.z}.\footnote{\textarab{.z}.}

\end{document}

----------------------------------------

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pstricks}
\usepackage{pst-eps}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Junicode}
\usepackage[novoc,fdf2noalif]{arabxetex}
\newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.3,WordSpace=2]{Scheherazade}

\newcommand{\A}{\textarab}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\begin{pspicture}(0,0)(3,3)
\psline[linewidth=1pt](0,0)(0,3) %base
\psline[linewidth=1pt](0,0)(3,0) %2e base
\psline[linewidth=1pt](0,3)(3,3) %3e base
\psline[linewidth=1pt](3,0)(3,3) %oblique 1
\psline[linewidth=1pt](0,3)(3,0) %oblique 1
\rput(1.5,2.4){\A{mA'iT}}
\rput(1.5,3.278){\A{`^srT}}
\rput*[0,0]{-45}(0.23,1.74){\A{j_dr mA'ityn}}
\rput*[0,0]{-90}(3.125,2.1){}
\rput*[0,0]{-90}(-0.7,2.1){}
\rput(1.5,-0.275){}
\end{pspicture}
\end{center}

\end{document}