6

Solving recently a problem with coloured table and hhline, I found that, as the babel-spanish module makes > and < active characters, using codes such as \hhline{>{\arrayrulecolor{some colour}}--} doesn't work: the line remains black.

A workaround consists in inactivating these characters with \shorthandoff. However, the same type of construction in the preamble of a tabular environment does work, so I wondered whether it should not be reported as a bug in hhline.

Here is a very short code demonstrating this behaviour:

\documentclass[spanish, table]{article}%
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hhline}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\parindent = 0pt

\begin{document}

Without \verb|\shorthandoff|: \medskip

\begin{tabular}{| >{\bfseries}cc|}
  \hhline{--}
  Some text & Some other text
  \\
  \hhline{>{\arrayrulecolor{red}}->{\arrayrulecolor{blue}}-}
\end{tabular}
\vspace{1cm}

With \verb|\shorthandoff{<>}|: \medskip

\shorthandoff{<>}\begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}cc|}
  \hhline{--}
  Some text & Some other text
  \\
 \hhline{>{\arrayrulecolor{red}}->{\arrayrulecolor{blue}}-}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Bernard
  • 271,350
  • 3
    I could have a look but in general packages making characters active will stop those characters being used as delimiters in other commands so you could make a feature request but it's not a bug – David Carlisle Jun 16 '17 at 21:11
  • @David Carlisle: I used the bug wording because I didn't find the relevant wording, and no one ever pointed it. I meant that probably you didn't notice there was a problem, so didn't care for it. What puzzles me is there's no problem in the preamble of the table. – Bernard Jun 16 '17 at 22:08
  • Shorthands are deactivated in the preamble by default, which explains the behaviour you found. – Javier Bezos Jun 17 '17 at 11:43
  • @JavierBezos: You mean they're activated by default, or did I misunderstand the whole thing? It works after I've set`\shorthandsoff{<>}`` . – Bernard Jun 17 '17 at 11:48
  • @Bernard Sorry. I missed ‘of a tabular environment’ (in other words, I thought it was the document preamble). Just ignore my comment. – Javier Bezos Jun 17 '17 at 14:09

1 Answers1

4

colortbl's version of \hhline could be made to take more care of active characters as follows:

enter image description here

\documentclass[spanish, table]{article}%
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hhline}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\parindent = 0pt

{\makeatletter
\catcode`\>\active
\catcode`\-\active
\gdef\hhline#1{\omit\@firstamptrue\@tempswafalse
\global\setbox\@ne\HH@box\doublerulesep\doublerulesep
  \expandafter\let\expandafter>\string>%
  \expandafter\let\expandafter-\string-%
  \xdef\@tempc{\ifx\extrarowheight\HH@undef\hskip\string-.5\arrayrulewidth\fi}%
    \HH@xexpast\relax#1*0x\@@\toks@{}\expandafter\HH@let\@tempa`}
}

\begin{document}

Without \verb|\shorthandoff|: \medskip

\begin{tabular}{| >{\bfseries}cc|}
  \hhline{--}
  Some text & Some other text
  \\
  \hhline{>{\arrayrulecolor{red}}->{\arrayrulecolor{blue}}-}
\end{tabular}
\vspace{1cm}

With \verb|\shorthandoff{<>}|: \medskip

\shorthandoff{<>}\begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}cc|}
  \hhline{--}
  Some text & Some other text
  \\
 \hhline{>{\arrayrulecolor{red}}->{\arrayrulecolor{blue}}-}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}
David Carlisle
  • 757,742