Alternatives to $\backslash$

Question

Background

Instead of marking up the text with bold or emphasis, I read (and agree) that it is better to define a command, or environment, that describes the content. Then apply text formatting later.

Problem

In LyX, it is trivial to highlight and make bold a Windows directory name. For example

C:\apache-tomcat\webapps\

Many such paths exist in the document I am writing. What I would like to do is create a new layout/style called filename that describes the content:¹

\filename{C:\apache-tomcat\webapps\}

But \ is the escape character. This means that the backslash must be transformed:

\filename{C:$\backslash$apache-tomcat$\backslash$webapps$\backslash$}

The filename command is defined as follows:

\newcommand{\filename}[1]{\textbf{#1}}

Question

Is there another way to define the filename command that does not mandate the use of $\backslash$ everywhere; rather keep using the literal \ character? Something like:

\newcommand{\filename}[1]{\textbf{\verbatim{#1}}}

(I want to temporarily disable the special meaning of backslash.)

Thank you!

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¹ What I really want to do is define my own styles/layouts in LyX while using the KOMA Script v2 class. However, the documentation on this aspect has insufficient detail for me to extend the class. That way I can simply highlight the text and apply the style, rather than resorting to LaTeX and ERT within LyX.

Answer 1

You should use the \path macro from the url package. Alternatively, you can make your own macro that behaves that way using \DeclareUrlCommand. For example, \path is (basically) defined as follows.

\DeclareUrlCommand\path{\urlstyle{tt}}

Of course, if you want bold, then you should use bf instead of tt.