Two independent optional arguments for new commands

Question

I'm trying to adapt the solution provided in Different command definitions with and without optional argument to change the behavior of my new command. I'd like to use basic command to avoid some non basic packages.

I'm defining a command \mysign to produce my signature at the end of the document. But sometimes I need the date above and sometimes not. So I'd like to have an optional argument to insert it (for example\mysign[date]).

Also, sometimes I need to insert some personal ID and I'd like to have a second optional argument, but independent with the first one.

So, the result would be something like this:

\mysign only the signature
\mysign[date] the signature with date
\mysign[id] the signature with ID
\mysign[date, id] full signature

The problem is that \@ifnextchar[ is working only for one option. I can not adjust to work only with second option.

Any idea?

@GonzaloMedina, thanks, but I have no idea what you are asking. Probably yes since I simply would like to turn on/off the date and ID on my signature. — Sigur, Jul 08 '13 at 22:28
I mean \mysign produces signature; \mysign[date=<value>] produces signature+date; \mysign[id=<value>] gives signature+id; \mysign[date=<value>,id=<value>] gives signature+date+id. — Gonzalo Medina, Jul 08 '13 at 22:31
Doing with only one optional argument requires knowing the format of the ID, so that it's distinguishable from the date. — egreg, Jul 08 '13 at 22:59
@egreg, in fact, the ID is an image and I'd like to insert it with \includegraphics. — Sigur, Jul 08 '13 at 23:06

Gonzalo Medina · Answer 1 · 2013-07-09T00:06:30.667

8

A key=value approach

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xkeyval}

\makeatletter
\def\SigurId{}
\define@key{sigur}{date}{\def\SigurDate{#1}}
\define@boolkey{sigur}{id}{
  \ifKV@sigur@id
    \def\SigurId{\includegraphics[height=1.2ex,width=2cm]{example-image-a}}%
  \else
  \fi%
}

\makeatother
\newcommand\mysig[1][]{%
  \begingroup
    \setkeys{sigur}{date={},id=false}
    \setkeys{sigur}{#1}
    Sigur~\SigurDate\unskip~\SigurId\unskip
  \endgroup
}

\begin{document}

\mysig 

\mysig[date={\today}]

\mysig[id=true]

\mysig[date=\today,id=true]

\end{document}

enter image description here

edited Jul 09 '13 at 00:06

answered Jul 08 '13 at 22:50

Gonzalo Medina

505,128

Ow, thanks. Almost there. The ID is in fact an image, so I'm trying to adjust to make use of \includegraphics if the option id is passed. In your code I should pass the complete command to the value id? – Sigur Jul 08 '13 at 23:04
@Sigur Will it always be the same image? – Gonzalo Medina Jul 08 '13 at 23:13
Yes, my scanned signature. – Sigur Jul 08 '13 at 23:14
I'd defined a command to the whole command to include the graphics and now I can pass the key id=\myid. – Sigur Jul 08 '13 at 23:39
1

@Sigur please see my updated answer with a new boolean key for the image. – Gonzalo Medina Jul 08 '13 at 23:55

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 12 '17 at 17:57

From the comments to the answer of Gonzalo Medina I conclude that the optional argument ID is constant and rather a flag. Then LaTeX also knows an optional star as syntax element. The following example defines \mysign without the need of further packages the following way:

If a star follows, then the signature ID is set.
If an optional argument follows, then the date is set.
If the optional argument is empty, then \today is used as date.

The example file:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\makeatletter
\newcommand*{\SetId}{%
  % tabular is only used for vertical centering
  % and ghostscript's example tiger.eps is the dummy
  % for the real scanned signature
  \begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}%
    \includegraphics[height=2em,trim=0 50mm 0 0,clip]{tiger}%
  \end{tabular}%
}
\newcommand*{\mysign}{%
  \@ifstar{%
    \let\@DoId=\SetId
    \@mysign
  }{%
    \let\@DoId=\relax
    \@mysign
  }%
}
\newcommand*{\@mysign}[1][\relax]{%
  Signature%
  \def\@mysign@relax{\relax}%
  \def\@mysign@date{#1}%
  \ifx\@mysign@date\@mysign@relax
  \else
    , %
    \ifx\@mysign@date\@empty
      \today
    \else
      #1%
    \fi
  \fi
  \ifx\@DoId\relax
  \else
    , %   
    \@DoId
  \fi
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\renewcommand*{\arraystretch}{2}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\verb|\mysign| & \mysign \\
\verb|\mysign*| & \mysign* \\
\verb|\mysign[]| & \mysign[] \\
\verb|\mysign[2001-02-03]| & \mysign[2001-02-03] \\
\verb|\mysign*[]| & \mysign*[] \\
\verb|\mysign*[2001-02-03]| & \mysign*[2001-02-03] \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Ow, many thanks. I'm learning a lot with these kind of solutions. — Sigur, Jul 09 '13 at 00:31

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 09 '13 at 07:36

Another solution based again on a key-based interface: it exploits pgfkeys.

The code:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{mwe}

% key definition
\newif\ifbaseline
\pgfkeys{/signature/.cd, baseline/.is if=baseline}
\pgfkeys{/signature/.cd,
  date/.initial={},
  date/.get=\signdate,
  date/.store in=\signdate,
  id/.initial={},
  id/.get=\id,
  id/.store in=\id,
}

% Basic command
\newcommand{\signature}[2][]{
\pgfkeys{signature/.cd,
  date={},
  id={},
  baseline=false,
  #1}
#2\space\signdate\space%
\ifbaseline
 \tikz[baseline=-0.5ex]\node[inner sep=0pt]{\id};
\else
 \id
\fi%
}

\begin{document}
\signature{Sigur}

\signature[date=\today]{Sigur}

\signature[id={\includegraphics[width=2em,height=2em]{example-image}}]{Sigur}

\signature[baseline,id={\includegraphics[width=2em,height=2em]{example-image}}]{Sigur}

\signature[baseline,
  id={\includegraphics[width=2em,height=2em]{example-image}},
  date={June 28, 2013}]{Sigur}

\signature[id={\includegraphics[width=2em,height=2em]{example-image}},
  date={June 28, 2013}]{Sigur}
\end{document}

TikZ is not really needed, actually it can be loaded pgfkeys in its place, but then I enjoyed the possibility to put the picture aligned on the baseline.

The result:

enter image description here

the twoopt package provides \newcommand, \renewcommand and \providecommand variants, that all accept two optional arguments. — wasteofspace, Jul 09 '13 at 10:22
@wasteofspace: what if they are three or six? With key-based approaches it's just matter of defining new keys. Please, also consider that there's the xparse package able to define commands with more optional arguments, but I really believe that a key-based approach is the best. — Claudio Fiandrino, Jul 09 '13 at 10:28

Fran · Answer 4 · 2013-07-09T00:17:35.133

2

The poor man's solution:

\newcommand\mysig[3][Sigur]{#2 #1 #3}

Example:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand\mysig[3][Sigur]{#2 #1 #3}

\begin{document}

\mysig{date}{id}

\mysig{date}

\mysig{}{id}

\mysig

\end{document}

MWE

edited Jul 09 '13 at 00:17

answered Jul 09 '13 at 00:08

Fran

80,769

Poor, but with rich soul. Thanks. – Sigur Jul 09 '13 at 00:26

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 08 '13 at 22:55

0

what about doing something like:

\usepackage{ifthen}
\newcommand{\mysign}[2]{%
    \ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{}}{}{#1\\}%
    SIGNATURE CODE%
    \ifthenelse{\equal{#2}{}}{}{\\#2}}

and then just invoke with the fields you don't want to use blank

i.e. \mysign{date}{} fot just date, etc...

answered Jul 08 '13 at 22:55

John C

173

1

Do you know if the package ifthen comes with basic install? – Sigur Jul 08 '13 at 23:05
1

according to apt-file it comes packaged in texlive-latex-baseso it should come by default – John C Jul 08 '13 at 23:11

Two independent optional arguments for new commands

5 Answers5