Use detokenize with command line input that has underscores

Question

I'm calling a script where I give a command line input to LaTeX:

pdflatex "\def\myvar{given_test} \input{figures.tex}"

And then in the script, I try to use this "given_test" input and print it:

\textbf{filename: \myvar}

This breaks LaTeX, then I try to use detokenize

\textbf{filename: \detokenize{\myvar}}

And that just prints the text "\myvar"

The underscore is a necessity, since we are reading from a more complex pipeline that uses them for the file identifiers.

So how do I read what is inside \myvar and not break LaTeX.

Try \textbf{filename: \expandafter\detokenize\expandafter{\myvar}} — Werner, Nov 15 '13 at 03:25
It works, but it gives a dot instead of the underscore, is understandable, but if it gave the underscores it would be great, care to write it as an answer and then you can get the sweet points? — Leon palafox, Nov 15 '13 at 03:28
@Leonpalafox Changing \textbf onto \texttt gives underscore in the desired place. — Przemysław Scherwentke, Nov 15 '13 at 04:29
You can use \edef\myvar{\detokenize{given_test}} in the command line. — egreg, Nov 15 '13 at 17:58

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

10

Together with guidelines in Handling of special LaTeX characters in text, you can expand \myvar before \detokenize-ing it:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}% http://ctan.org/pkg/fontenc
\def\myvar{given_test}
\begin{document}
\textbf{filename: \detokenize\expandafter{\myvar}}
\end{document}

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

Community

1

answered Nov 15 '13 at 04:13

Werner

603,163

1

Sorry for nitpicking but I think that the first \expandafter is not mandatory (as with \unexpanded). Sorry if I'm mistaken. – cjorssen Nov 15 '13 at 08:33
@cjorssen You're right: \detokenize looks for the opening brace expanding tokens as it goes, so the first \expandafter is not necessary. – egreg Nov 15 '13 at 10:22

egreg · Answer 2 · 2013-11-15T18:11:13.863

It shouldn't be difficult to change your pipeline to do

pdflatex "\edef\myvar{\detokenize{given_test}}\input{figures.tex}"

Example with figures.tex like this:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

Here's the file name: \texttt{\myvar}

\input{\myvar}

\end{document}

and with given_test.tex containing

Hello World!

Compiling with the above command line gives

enter image description here

so you see that the variable points to the correct file name.

Note that if you need \myvar in other fonts than typewriter type, loading

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

in the document becomes necessary.

Use detokenize with command line input that has underscores

2 Answers2