Difference between \big[ and \bigl[

Question

What is the difference between \big[ (or equivalently \big() and \bigl[? Is it always necessary to mention l (left) and r (right)?

It's also instructive to consider the open interval notation, $]x[$ vs. $\left]x\right[$ or any of the \big versions. — barbara beeton, Jul 16 '23 at 20:04

score 58 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 08 '12 at 14:43

58

\bigl declares an opening math delimiter with less horizontal spacing than the unspecified \big. \bigr defines a closing math delimiter. Using a \bigl and \bigr pair you could get the brackets or parentheses closer to the term within.

Just compare:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
$\bigl[ \times \bigr]$

$\big[ \times \big]$
\end{document}

Output:

alt text

The definitions in latex.ltx are:

\def\bigl{\mathopen\big}
\def\bigm{\mathrel\big}
\def\bigr{\mathclose\big}

edited Mar 08 '12 at 14:43

diabonas

25,784

answered Aug 06 '10 at 17:04

Stefan Kottwitz

231,401

3

Is there a way to make this distinction without specifying a larger size? – Mark Meckes Aug 06 '10 at 17:30
10

For normal brackets it's automatically done. Compare $[ \times ]$ to $\mathord[ \times \mathord]$ . – Stefan Kottwitz Aug 06 '10 at 17:48
5

What you're saying is that [ is automatically interpreted as an opening math delimiter, so one must manually force it not to be, if desired; is that right? – Mark Meckes Aug 06 '10 at 19:18
6

That's true. fontmath.ltx defines: \DeclareMathDelimiter{[}{\mathopen} {operators}{"5B}{largesymbols}{"02} – Stefan Kottwitz Aug 06 '10 at 19:45
1

Does the same spacing issue happen to [x] and \left[x\right]? – C-star-W-star Jan 08 '15 at 00:12
@Mark Meckes : This reply is kind of late, but yes. You can see it in the definitions at the bottom of the answer: \mathopen on the left and \mathclose on the right. – Toby Bartels Sep 25 '21 at 21:01

score 26 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 16 '23 at 19:27

26

You can see the difference in the following example. The left modifiers \bigl etc. are basically \mathopen{}\big. You also have to use \mathopen if you are using \left and \right to do automatic scaling to get correct spacing in some cases.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\begin{align}
  x &= \sin\biggl(\frac12\biggr)          \ % good
  x &= \sin\mathopen{}\bigg(\frac12\bigg) \ % good
  x &= \sin\bigg(\frac12\bigg)            \ % bad
  x &= \sin\left(\frac12\right)           \ % bad
  x &= \sin\mathopen{}\left(\frac12\right)   % good
\end{align}
\end{document}

edited Jul 16 '23 at 19:27

azetina

28,884

answered Aug 06 '10 at 17:43

Martin Heller

11,391

1

I see. So what I now understand is that one should use \mathopen{} for a function, e.g., f\mathopen{}\left(x^{2^2}\right), but don’t use it for a multiplication, e.g., x \cdot \left(x^{2^2}\right) = x \left(x^{2^2}\right). It would be great if someone with some typographic experience could confirm! (Alternatively, I could open a new question.) – timothymctim Mar 13 '18 at 20:26
It's not 100% clean when one should use either. Is \mathopen{} only for function arguments? – mu7z Jun 17 '20 at 22:33

Difference between \big[ and \bigl[

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