Swap definition of starred and non-starred command

Question

I don't like the fact that I am required to use \abs* when I want the vertical line of the absolute value to automatically re-size. I pretty much always want it to re-size, so would like to swap the definition of the two commands, but not sure how to do that. My attempt below is commented out as it does not compile.

I can't think of a case where I'd want to use the version that does not resize, but in case some corner case arises in the future I don't want to loose that. Or, is there a good reason to not to do this swap, and go and change all occurrences of \abs to \abs*.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{mathtools}

\DeclarePairedDelimiter\abs{\lvert}{\rvert}

%\let\oldabs{\abs}%
%\let\oldabs*{\abs*}%
%\let\abs{oldabs*}%
%\let\abs*{\oldabs}%

\begin{document}
Not sure why this is the default behavior, but it is:
\[\abs{\frac{1}{2}}\]

Would prefer to get this behavior using \textbackslash{abs},
instead of having to use \textbackslash{abs*}.
\[\abs*{\frac{1}{2}}\]
\end{document}

Answer 1

You can redefine \abs to call the opposite version of the original command:

\makeatletter
\let\oldabs\abs
\def\abs{\@ifstar{\oldabs}{\oldabs*}}
\makeatother

(The reason that your commented try doesn't work is that technically the * is not part of the macro name, but is read by the macro itself using \@ifstar, \@ifnextchar or similar commands.)

Answer 2

simply define \abs with \def if you do not want to use the star version.

\def\abs#1{\left\lvert#1\right\rvert}

Answer 3

I've had the same problem and wrote a work-around for this: a macro \DeclarePairedDelimiterY, see this question. But note you have to replace the line

{\csname#1Temp*\endcsname{##2}}%

with

{\csname#1Temp\endcsname*{##2}}%

Then you can define \abs by

\DeclarePairedDelimiterY{abs}{\lvert}{\rvert}

where the backslash of \abs is omitted. Then:

• \abs{x} expands to \left\lvert x\right\rvert
• \abs[normal]{x} expands to \lvert x\rvert
• \abs[big]{x} expands to \bigl\lvert x\bigr\rvert
• \abs[Big]{x} expands to \Bigl\lvert x\Bigr\rvert
• \abs[bigg]{x} expands to \biggl\lvert x\biggr\rvert
• \abs[Bigg]{x} expands to \Biggl\lvert x\Biggr\rvert

In contrast to the original \DeclarePairedDelimiter command, you leave out the backslash of \big, \Big etc.

(Unluckily I didn't find your question prior to posting my own one...)

Answer 4

You can change the internal definition

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{mathtools}



\makeatletter
\MHInternalSyntaxOn
\renewcommand*\DeclarePairedDelimiter[3]{%
  \@ifdefinable{#1}{
    \@namedef{MT_delim_\MH_cs_to_str:N #1 _star:}##1
        {\mathopen{}\mathclose\bgroup\left#2 ##1 \aftergroup\egroup\right #3}%
    \@xp\@xp\@xp
      \newcommand
        \@xp\csname MT_delim_\MH_cs_to_str:N #1 _nostar:\endcsname
        [2][\\@gobble]
        {
          \mathopen{\@nameuse {\MH_cs_to_str:N ##1 l} #2} ##2
          \mathclose{\@nameuse {\MH_cs_to_str:N ##1 r} #3}}
    \DeclareRobustCommand{#1}{
      \@ifstar
        {\@nameuse{MT_delim_\MH_cs_to_str:N #1 _nostar:}}
        {\@nameuse{MT_delim_\MH_cs_to_str:N #1 _star:}}
    }
  }
}
\MHInternalSyntaxOff
\DeclarePairedDelimiter\abs{\lvert}{\rvert}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
Not sure why this is the default behavior, but it is:
\[\abs{\frac{1}{2}}\]

Would prefer to get this behavior using \textbackslash{abs},
instead of having to use \textbackslash{abs*}.
\[\abs*{\frac{1}{2}}\]
\end{document}

Answer 5

You can patch the internal definition

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{etoolbox}


\DeclarePairedDelimiter{\avg}{\langle}{\rangle}

\newcommand\swapifbranches[3]{#1{#3}{#2}}
\makeatletter
\MHInternalSyntaxOn
\patchcmd{\DeclarePairedDelimiter}{\@ifstar}{\swapifbranches\@ifstar}{}{}
\MHInternalSyntaxOff
\makeatother

\DeclarePairedDelimiter{\mean}{\langle}{\rangle}


\begin{document}

$\avg{\displaystyle\sum_0^1}$  $\avg*{\displaystyle\sum_0^1}$

$\mean{\displaystyle\sum_0^1}$ $\mean*{\displaystyle\sum_0^1}$

\end{document}