Which one should be used in limit, \rightarrow or \to?

Question

Which one should be used in limit, \rightarrow or \to?

I also use \to in limit, but I am not sure whether or not it is intentionally designed for that. — Display Name, May 27 '11 at 06:51
With a good editor and good shorcuts, \righrarrowis more explicit and you can see the difference with \longrightarrow or \righrarrow. So it's depends of the user ! — Alain Matthes, May 27 '11 at 07:28

score 43 · Answer 1 · answered May 27 '11 at 10:09

43

In your document you should always use \to because it describes the meaning of what you're trying to write (i.e. a limit when x tends to some value).

In general its a good idea to prefer the use of commands which tell you the meaning of the symbol (in your particular context) and not just the name of the symbol.

For the very same reason I use

\let\lthen\rightarrow

And then write A \lthen B for implication in logic formulas.

answered May 27 '11 at 10:09

Juan A. Navarro

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+1: Amazing just how many people don't understand this – Brent.Longborough May 27 '11 at 18:00
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this should be the accepted answer. – peter Feb 01 '21 at 08:17
Or use \implies for implication ? – Neal Young Jan 01 '22 at 20:09

score 40 · Accepted Answer · answered May 27 '11 at 06:58

40

They are the same character. If you say \show\to and \show\rightarrow then both is \mathchar"3221. So use \to it is shorter

answered May 27 '11 at 06:58

Danie Els

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And in fontmath.ltx there's \let\to=\rightarrow. – egreg May 27 '11 at 07:56
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In this case I'd rather recommend "Use the one that makes more sense semantically". – Martin Tapankov May 27 '11 at 13:13

Which one should be used in limit, \rightarrow or \to?

2 Answers2