Defaulting to clever references

Question

I would like to redefine \ref to behave like \cref while still allowing \ref* to be used for the standard behavior of \ref. Here is my attempt to achieve this; I would like to use the commented lines instead of the uncommented lines, but unfortunately I get an error. My reference for creating starred commands was the following: https://texfaq.org/FAQ-cmdstar

\documentclass{article}
    \usepackage{cleveref}
\let\oldref\ref
\renewcommand{\ref}{%
    \makeatletter
        \@ifstar
            \oldref%
            \cref%
    \makeatother
}


\begin{document}
\begin{equation}
    \label{eqn:2.2.4}
    2 + 2 = 4
\end{equation}
\oldref{eqn:2.2.4}
\cref{eqn:2.2.4}
% \ref{eqn:2.2.4}
% \ref*{eqn:2.2.4}
\end{document}

Do not put \makeatletter and \makeatother inside the \renewcommand (which fails for two different reasons) but outside of it: \makeatletter\renewcommand{\ref}{\@ifstar\oldref\cref}\makeatother. — Qrrbrbirlbel, Jul 07 '13 at 09:48
Note that the package hyperref defines \ref* to not produce a link, so you could be in trouble if you load this package. — egreg, Jul 07 '13 at 10:01
Why would you want to use \ref instead of \cref? The semantics are clearly different, someone not familiar with your change will have a difficult time parsing your LaTeX code. — krlmlr, Jul 12 '13 at 00:35

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

Do not put \makeatletter and \makeatother inside the \renewcommand. This fails for two reasons:

\@ifstar sees \makeatother as the next character and not a * which may or may not follow.
When TeX processes the contents of the definition the catcodes of @ are already read (and set to 12 (other)). (So you actually define it as \@ followed by the letters ifstar.

The correct definition would be

\makeatletter
\renewcommand*{\ref}{\@ifstar\oldref\cref}
\makeatother

(For the * used here refer to What's the difference between \newcommand and \newcommand*?)

Defaulting to clever references

1 Answers1