csquotes' French guillemets unexpected within hyperref's \href argument with (pdf|lua)latex

Question

In the following MWE relying on csquotes, " is used as quote which prints outer quotation marks, with French guillemets for the output.

\documentclass[french]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[french=guillemets*]{csquotes}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\MakeOuterQuote{"}
\begin{document}
\begin{itemize}
\item Proper French guillemets: "Foo", \textbf{"Foo"}.
\item (Un)Proper French guillemets: \href{https://foo.org}{"Foo"}.
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

When processed with xelatex, it gives the expected result:

— Proper French guillemets : « Foo », « Foo ».

— (Un)Proper French guillemets : « Foo ».

But, when processed with pdflatex or lualatex, it gives an unexpected result:

— Proper French guillemets : « Foo », « Foo ».

— (Un)Proper French guillemets : "Foo".

Do you understand what's going on?

(This trouble is encountered with an up to date TeX Live 2023:

 *File List*
 article.cls    2023/05/17 v1.4n Standard LaTeX document class
  size10.clo    2023/05/17 v1.4n Standard LaTeX file (size option)
 fontenc.sty    2021/04/29 v2.0v Standard LaTeX package
csquotes.sty    2022-09-14 v5.2n context-sensitive quotations (JAW)
etoolbox.sty    2020/10/05 v2.5k e-TeX tools for LaTeX (JAW)
  keyval.sty    2022/05/29 v1.15 key=value parser (DPC)
csquotes.def    2022-09-14 v5.2n csquotes generic definitions (JAW)
csquotes.cfg    
   babel.sty    2023/10/25 v3.96 The Babel package
  french.ldf    2023/03/08 v3.5q French support from the babel system
babel-french.tex
scalefnt.sty    
hyperref.sty    2023-10-21 v7.01c Hypertext links for LaTeX
 ltxcmds.sty    2020-05-10 v1.25 LaTeX kernel commands for general use (HO)
   iftex.sty    2022/02/03 v1.0f TeX engine tests
pdftexcmds.sty    2020-06-27 v0.33 Utility functions of pdfTeX for LuaTeX (HO)
infwarerr.sty    2019/12/03 v1.5 Providing info/warning/error messages (HO)
kvsetkeys.sty    2022-10-05 v1.19 Key value parser (HO)
kvdefinekeys.sty    2019-12-19 v1.6 Define keys (HO)
pdfescape.sty    2019/12/09 v1.15 Implements pdfTeX's escape features (HO)
 hycolor.sty    2020-01-27 v1.10 Color options for hyperref/bookmark (HO)
letltxmacro.sty    2019/12/03 v1.6 Let assignment for LaTeX macros (HO)
 auxhook.sty    2019-12-17 v1.6 Hooks for auxiliary files (HO)
 nameref.sty    2023-10-05 v2.54 Cross-referencing by name of section
refcount.sty    2019/12/15 v3.6 Data extraction from label references (HO)
gettitlestring.sty    2019/12/15 v1.6 Cleanup title references (HO)
kvoptions.sty    2022-06-15 v3.15 Key value format for package options (HO)
  pd1enc.def    2023-10-21 v7.01c Hyperref: PDFDocEncoding definition (HO)
 intcalc.sty    2019/12/15 v1.3 Expandable calculations with integers (HO)
   puenc.def    2023-10-21 v7.01c Hyperref: PDF Unicode definition (HO)
     url.sty    2013/09/16  ver 3.4  Verb mode for urls, etc.
  bitset.sty    2019/12/09 v1.3 Handle bit-vector datatype (HO)
bigintcalc.sty    2019/12/15 v1.5 Expandable calculations on big integers (HO)
atbegshi-ltx.sty    2021/01/10 v1.0c Emulation of the original atbegshi
package with kernel methods
 hpdftex.def    2023-10-21 v7.01c Hyperref driver for pdfTeX
atveryend-ltx.sty    2020/08/19 v1.0a Emulation of the original atveryend packa
ge
with kernel methods
rerunfilecheck.sty    2022-07-10 v1.10 Rerun checks for auxiliary files (HO)
uniquecounter.sty    2019/12/15 v1.4 Provide unlimited unique counter (HO)
l3backend-pdftex.def    2023-10-23 L3 backend support: PDF output (pdfTeX)
    test.out
    test.out
 ***********

)

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 27 '23 at 16:37

Well you can try to remove \Hy@safe@activestrue from \hyper@chars. As nowadays almost all active characters are protected, it is probably not needed.

But be aware that you won't get the right quotes in the bookmarks. And personally I wouldn't use " for quotes (it would e.g. clash with the german shorthands). See also https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/472729/2388

\documentclass[french]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[french=guillemets*]{csquotes}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\MakeOuterQuote{"}
\makeatletter
\renewcommand*\hyper@chars{%
  \let#\hyper@hash
  \let%@percentchar
  %  \Hy@safe@activestrue
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\section{"Foo"}
\begin{itemize}
\item Proper French guillemets: "Foo", \textbf{"Foo"}.
\item (Un)Proper French guillemets: \href{https://foo.org}{"Foo"}.
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

csquotes' French guillemets unexpected within hyperref's \href argument with (pdf|lua)latex

1 Answers1