Inconsistent phantom space in table p column

Question

Follow-up from this thread.

Issue

phantom seems to have an inconsistent behaviour depending on whether something is printed before its call when used in a p column type in a table.

• When used on its own, it generates a linebreak;
• When highlighted with colorbox it fixes itself but generates 2 extra characters (spaces);
• When prefixed by a negative hspace, it works properly but this does not seem right;
• When used with both colorbox and hspace, another extra space appears.

Bonus question

In my newcolumntype definition, I use textwidth to define the width of the columns but this does not take into account tabcolsep. Is there a way to somehow redefine it to be \textwidth-\tabcolsep?

Demo

MWE

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{mwe}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{#1\textwidth}}

\newcommand{\mail}[1]{
  \href{mailto:#1}{#1}
}

\begin{document}
\centering

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{\#} & \textbf{w/ phantom} \\
  \midrule
  1           & {\ttfamily\phantom{xxx}\mail{a@tex.c}}   \\
  2           & {\ttfamily\phantom{xx}\mail{ab@tex.co}}  \\
  3           & {\ttfamily\mail{abcd@tex.com}}           \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{\#} & \textbf{w/ colorbox} \\
  \midrule
  1           & {\ttfamily\colorbox{red}{\phantom{xxx}}\mail{a@tex.c}}  \\
  2           & {\ttfamily\colorbox{red}{\phantom{xx}}\mail{ab@tex.co}} \\
  3           & {\ttfamily\mail{abcd@tex.com}}                          \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{\#} & \textbf{w/ hspace} \\
  \midrule
  1           & {\ttfamily\hspace{-.5em}\phantom{xxx}\mail{a@tex.c}}  \\
  2           & {\ttfamily\hspace{-.5em}\phantom{xx}\mail{ab@tex.co}} \\
  3           & {\ttfamily\hspace{-.5em}\mail{abcd@tex.com}}          \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{\#} & \textbf{w/ hspace \& colorbox} \\
  \midrule
  1           & {\ttfamily\hspace{-.5em}\colorbox{red}{\phantom{xxx}}\mail{a@tex.c}}  \\
  2           & {\ttfamily\hspace{-.5em}\colorbox{red}{\phantom{xx}}\mail{ab@tex.co}} \\
  3           & {\ttfamily\hspace{-.5em}\mail{abcd@tex.com}}                          \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Answer 1

New answer (Edited to use hbox instead of mbox as @David Carlisle suggests) Also added \arraystretch fix

This is a way to avoid all the problems of your way and to automate all the process. You have to use the columns as on my code (r@{}>{@}l or similar) and to give in your tabular the commands: \nameMAIL{nameHere} and \MAILon{providerHere}. It already creates what you want without counting spaces that would be bad in result if a number like 1 was inside the mail name. (x is longer than 1 or than l->small L). So, to avoid all this things you are already ok with these commands. But For your example needed a link too. So I used \tikzmark (from here) and created the command LinkAllMails. Just don't forget to set it's counter (numOfmails) to zero before starting a new tabular. Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\makeatletter
\xdef\myfsize{\f@size}
\makeatother
\newcounter{numOfmails}
\newcommand{\tikzmark}[1]{\tikz[overlay,remember picture] \node (#1) {};}
\newcommand{\nameMAIL}[1]{\stepcounter{numOfmails}\tikzmark{MAIL\thenumOfmails}\xdef\temp{#1}\global\expandafter\let\csname Mail\thenumOfmails\endcsname\temp\hbox{\phantom{\temp}}}
\newcommand{\MAILon}[1]{\xdef\temp{#1}\global\expandafter\let\csname MAILon\thenumOfmails\endcsname\temp\hbox{\phantom{\temp}}\tikzmark{MAILon\thenumOfmails}}
\newcommand{\LinkAllMails}{\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]\foreach \i in {1,...,\thenumOfmails}{
\path  ($(MAIL\i.north west)+(0,{\myfsize/1.5 pt})$) rectangle node[anchor=center] (NODE\i){} ($(MAILon\i.south east)$);
\node at (NODE\i) {\href{mailto:\csname Mail\i\endcsname@\csname MAILon\i\endcsname}{\csname Mail\i\endcsname\phantom{@}\csname MAILon\i\endcsname}};}\end{tikzpicture}}
\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{#1\textwidth}}
\begin{document}
\centering
\noindent
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2}
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|r@{}>{@}L{0.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{#} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{w/ phantom}}\
  \midrule
  1     & \nameMAIL{wab}&\MAILon{gmail.com}\
  2     & \nameMAIL{1ab}&\MAILon{gmail.com}\
  3           &\nameMAIL{ab}&\MAILon{gmail.com}\
  4           &\nameMAIL{abdul}&\MAILon{hotmail.com}\
  5           &\nameMAIL{koleygr}&\MAILon{private.com}\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\LinkAllMails
\setcounter{numOfmails}{0}
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|r@{}>{@}L{0.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{#} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{w/ phantom}}\
  \midrule
  6     & \nameMAIL{wa7b1}&\MAILon{gmail.com}\
  7     & \nameMAIL{1ab}&\MAILon{gmail.com}\
  8           &\nameMAIL{3ab}&\MAILon{gmail.com}\
  9           &\nameMAIL{abdu5l}&\MAILon{hotmail.com}\
  10           &\nameMAIL{koleygr}&\MAILon{nottooprivate.com}\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\LinkAllMails
\end{document}

Result:

Old answer:

According to @egreg's comment the \mbox command already "gives" a \leavemode and so there is no reason for the \leavemode in front of the \mbox command. (I just leaving it as is for now).

Check this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mwe}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{#1\textwidth}}
\newcommand{\mail}[1]{%
\href{mailto:#1}{#1}%
}
\begin{document}
\centering
\noindent
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{#} & \textbf{w/ phantom}\
  \midrule
  1           &\leavevmode\mbox{\ttfamily\phantom{xxx}\mail{a@tex.c}}\
  2           &\leavevmode\mbox{\ttfamily\phantom{xx}\mail{ab@tex.co}}\
  3           &\leavevmode\mbox{\ttfamily\mail{abcd@tex.com}}\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{#} & \textbf{w/ phantom}\
  \midrule
  1           &\leavevmode\mbox{\ttfamily{\color{red}xxx}\mail{a@tex.c}}\
  2           &\leavevmode\mbox{\ttfamily{\color{red}xx}\mail{ab@tex.co}}\
  3           &\leavevmode\mbox{\ttfamily\mail{abcd@tex.com}}\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

You had the next problems:

1. According to the selected answer of the question \phantom inside tabularx you have to add a \leavemode command to use phantom inside your tabular.

2. Your command for the \mail had some tokens that created extra space.

3. You can use an \mbox to avoid extra space of the heperref function for the mail.

   Output:

Answer 2

For anyone looking for a simple fix to the issue described, there is only two steps to take:

1. Add % to the line breaks in the mail command definition to avoid extra space;
2. Use leavevmode to stack blocks horizontally and prevent line breaks in the table.

Demo

MWE

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{mwe}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{#1\textwidth}}

\newcommand{\mail}[1]{%
  \href{mailto:#1}{#1}%
}

\begin{document}
\centering

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{L{.03}|L{.5}}
  \toprule
  \textbf{\#} & \textbf{w/ phantom \& leavevmode} \\
  \midrule
  1           & {\leavevmode\ttfamily\phantom{xxx}\mail{a@tex.c}}   \\
  2           & {\leavevmode\ttfamily\phantom{xx}\mail{ab@tex.co}}  \\
  3           & {\leavevmode\ttfamily\mail{abcd@tex.com}}           \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\end{document}