How do I cite a range of lines?

Question

I want to be able to specify a short excerpt of text that can be cited as a range of lines in the output PDF, ideally with this kind of syntax:

\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{lineno}

\begin{document}
    \runninglinenumbers*
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam lacinia posuere
    magna ut imperdiet. \labellines{nunc-pellentesque}{Nunc pellentesque} velit quis
    leo interdum ullamcorper. Ut fringilla sapien ut sem viverra, et rhoncus enim
    lobortis. Morbi diam eros, tristique nec feugiat eu, consequat ac dui. Duis
    molestie, sem id efficitur dignissim, velit metus auctor orci, sit amet mattis
    metus purus in nibh. Etiam mattis, magna ut imperdiet molestie, ex leo viverra
    velit, ac posuere augue est maximus risus. Etiam ac pellentesque nulla. Morbi
    quis pharetra purus. Proin porta, turpis et scelerisque hendrerit, elit eros
    malesuada mi, a imperdiet massa est id nibh. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad
    litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos.
    \labellines{nunc-pharetra}{Nunc pharetra vehicula metus, eu tincidunt arcu
        aliquet et. Aenean ac odio nunc. Etiam ultricies purus non dolor tincidunt, et
        ultricies turpis consequat. Integer vitae ullamcorper eros. Nullam pulvinar
        dictum nunc. Morbi ac justo mi.}

    % \reflines{nunc-pellentesque} should print "line 2"
    ``Nunc pellentesque\ldots'' was on \reflines{nunc-pellentesque}.

    % \reflines{nunc-pharetra} should print "lines 10--13"
    ``Nunc pharetra\ldots'' was on \reflines{nunc-pharetra}.
\end{document}

The text all by itself looks like this:

Are \labellines etc. valid commands? Or your imagination how those commands should be called? — , Aug 03 '15 at 21:10
@ChristianHupfer, they're imagined commands for doing what I hope to do. — Simon Kuang, Aug 03 '15 at 21:12
I'll think about it -- it requires an start- and end-linenumber storage however — , Aug 03 '15 at 21:16
@ChristianHupfer, my feeling was that you could do this with some slight modifications to smartref... — Simon Kuang, Aug 03 '15 at 21:19
@ChristianHupfer, it's a package that can process reference ranges. — Simon Kuang, Aug 03 '15 at 21:23
I don't know that package -- and I can't see that smartref is mentioned anywhere in your question before! — , Aug 03 '15 at 21:25

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 03 '15 at 21:29

An easy solution, but perhaps not failsafe:

Place a \linelabel{start:#1} at the begin of the enclosed #2
Place a \linelabel{end:#1} at the end of the enclosed #2

Use \getrefnumber from refcount package and extract the line numbers. In principle \lineref would do, but this does not yield expandable numbers, so the comparison will fail.

I did not add code to check whether the label exists at all!

\documentclass{memoir}


\usepackage{refcount}
\usepackage{lineno}

\newcommand{\labellines}[2]{%
  \linelabel{start:#1}%
  #2%
  \linelabel{end:#1}%
}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\reflines}[1]{%
  \begingroup
  \edef\temp@a{\getrefnumber{start:#1}}%
  \edef\temp@b{\getrefnumber{end:#1}}%
  \ifnum\temp@a = \temp@b
  line \temp@a%
  \else
  lines \temp@a\ and \temp@b%
  \fi
  \endgroup
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
    \runninglinenumbers*
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam lacinia posuere
    magna ut imperdiet. \labellines{nunc-pellentesque}{Nunc pellentesque} velit quis
    leo interdum ullamcorper. Ut fringilla sapien ut sem viverra, et rhoncus enim
    lobortis. Morbi diam eros, tristique nec feugiat eu, consequat ac dui. Duis
    molestie, sem id efficitur dignissim, velit metus auctor orci, sit amet mattis
    metus purus in nibh. Etiam mattis, magna ut imperdiet molestie, ex leo viverra
    velit, ac posuere augue est maximus risus. Etiam ac pellentesque nulla. Morbi
    quis pharetra purus. Proin porta, turpis et scelerisque hendrerit, elit eros
    malesuada mi, a imperdiet massa est id nibh. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad
    litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos.
    \labellines{nunc-pharetra}{Nunc pharetra vehicula metus, eu tincidunt arcu
        aliquet et. Aenean ac odio nunc. Etiam ultricies purus non dolor tincidunt, et
        ultricies turpis consequat. Integer vitae ullamcorper eros. Nullam pulvinar
        dictum nunc. Morbi ac justo mi.}

    % \reflines{nunc-pellentesque} should print "line 2"
    ``Nunc pellentesque\ldots'' was on \reflines{nunc-pellentesque}.

    % \reflines{nunc-pharetra} should print "lines 10--13"
    ``Nunc pharetra\ldots'' was on \reflines{nunc-pharetra}.
\end{document}

How do I cite a range of lines?

1 Answers1

Linked