6

Deeply inspired by Paulo Cereda's answer on the ways TeX can be used apart from document creation. If you haven't seen the program mentioned: it's a Reversi TeX game that during the compile asks the user for the next move in the game and provides feedback. At the end the whole game is produced as a dvi.

Immediately practical uses of this popped up: Asking users for layout, colors, language. So on to terra incognita!

I tried to dissect the Reversi game, but it's not written for readability. I searched around, but user input to TeX programs is not an everyday thing.

How do I take input from the user compiling the document?

For example, I could ask a user for their name, and then print "Hello, [user's name]".

Update 1: I've now stumbled upon the \read macro, and it seems to be on the way, but it isn't really what I want.

\documentclass[english]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}

\begin{document}

Hello, \read

\end{document}

Update 2: David Carlisle pointed me to makebst a program to generate bibTeX styles. I'm looking into the source.

Community
  • 1
Henrik Hansen
  • 2,927

2 Answers2

9

LaTeX provides the command \typein[var]{message} that should do what you're looking for:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\typein[\name]{What's your name? } % take user input
Hello \name!
\end{document}

There's also the sibling command \typeout{message} to output text on the console.

Martin
  • 2,628
2

From makebst I found this code that seems to work in TeX.

\documentclass[english]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}

\newread\ttyin

\def\defpar{\par}
\def\remblk#1 @@{#1}
\def\ask#1#2{\mes{#2}\read\ttyin to #1\ifx#1\defpar\def#1{}\else
  \edef#1{\expandafter\remblk#1@@}\fi}

\begin{document}

\ask{\name}{What is your name?}

Hello, \name

\end{document}
Henrik Hansen
  • 2,927