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Is there a script out there to expand LaTeX commands in a tex source?

I am submitting a manuscript source and I need a tool that expands a LaTeX command because I do not want some commands to appear in the source. Example source:

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\modified}[2]{#2}
\begin{document}
    \modified{Old long
     % Possible comments 
    Text} {New
    correct 
    Text % with comments
    }
\end{document}

After executing the command, I would like an output like this

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\modified}[2]{#2}
\begin{document}
    New
    correct 
    Text % with comments
\end{document}

If such a script doesn't exist, can you suggest tools to write one? For example, is there a Perl package that is LaTeX-aware?

Tohiko
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2 Answers2

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As far as I know there is no such tool. A generic TeX macro expander would expand all macros unless it encounters something unexpandable (usually a TeX primitive or input tokens). This kind of output would be plain unreadable.

So I suggest that you write your command replacement tool yourself in a script language you know well (perl and sed are good suggestions for this task, python and emacs-lisp come also to my mind).

Sir Cornflakes
  • 3,582
  • I am more thinking of a tool that would take a list of commands and expand only those. I will probably write it myself – Tohiko Apr 01 '16 at 10:47
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Your MWE suggests that your \modified macro is here to hide former versions.

Then a very simple approach is simply to comment out the old versions in lines starting with a distinctive pattern, say

%private

or

%!!

Then use sed utility for example to remove all private lines, something like

sed '/^%!!/d' foo.tex > bar.tex

You can also do something like \catcode1 14 and use ^^A at the start of the private lines then

sed '/^^^A/d' foo.tex > bar.tex

should work.

  • one can also use an auxiliary tex file to do a read/write obtaining what sed does, but except if you want this also on systems with no sed like line utility, I don't see the point. But it all depends on what is your exact use case, which is not completely clear from your posted question. –  Apr 01 '16 at 13:44
  • I usually set the modified command to display a strikedout old text and, just before submitting, change the command to completely ignore the old text. I wanted a solution that doesn't require me to manually go through the text hunting for these commands. – Tohiko Apr 01 '16 at 14:38
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    I you follow some simple mark-up rules you can considerably make easier the job later. For example you could use decide to do something like \catcode 1 9, then \modified{^^A nothing else on same line, ^^A as start of line and put the closing brace } at start of its line. Then you only need to grep for \^^A.* and remove the text matching that patterns. They are many ways, but if you have already used \modified type macros all over the place without any extra mark-up discipline, then it is harder using text editor search/replace. –  Apr 01 '16 at 15:11
  • 0 votes after two years? +1 – Dr. Manuel Kuehner Jun 07 '18 at 16:33
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    @Dr.ManuelKuehner much appreciated :). I have no idea what this post is all about apart from the fact that I actually do that in my xint package: I use %! to signal private comments which are trimmed when actually building up the CTAN upload... (I used %÷ for long time, but using utf-8 make some difficulties with how my active % now act in my private builds, so finally %!). I remove them via sed similar as in my answer here. –  Jun 07 '18 at 16:37
  • I like the elegant and yet easy method. I also prefer style guides which enable you to use search and replace – Dr. Manuel Kuehner Jun 07 '18 at 16:45