Macros for formatting & breaking classnames, file paths etc?

Question

I would like to format classes, file paths, directory paths, method names and so on in my document. At the very basic each of those should be formatted as \texttt. However, the rules for when LaTeX can line break them are different. For example:

Classes: break at '.'. For example "java.util.String" could be broken 2 places
File & directory paths: break at '/'. For example "C:\a\b\c" could be broken 3 places
Method names: break at spaces. For example "public getText()" could be broken 1 place

How would I go about doing this? The defs below is a starting point, but it doesn't provide any breaking behavior since LaTeX doesn't break \texttt by default.

\newcommand{\class}[1]{\texttt{#1}}
\newcommand{\method}[1]{\texttt{#1}}
..

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 08 '14 at 11:51

With the help of the url package we can define three new commands: \class, \filedir, and \method.

First of all we load the package url as follows:

\usepackage[obeyspaces,spaces]{url}

The obeyspaces option is needed otherwise all spaces inside \url-like commands are ignored and the option spaces is needed otherwise we won't be able to break lines at whitespaces.

These are the definitions:

\DeclareUrlCommand\class{%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBigBreaks}{\do\.}%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBreaks}{\do\.}%
  }
\DeclareUrlCommand\filedir{%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBigBreaks}{\do\\}%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBreaks}{\do\\}%
  }
\DeclareUrlCommand\method{%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBigBreaks}{}%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBreaks}{}%
  }

In the first case, we are creating a command that allows breaks only when a . is encountered. In the second one a command that allows breaks only when a \ is encountered. In the third case we leave the list blank since spaces are already allowed by the spaces option at loading time.

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[obeyspaces,spaces]{url}
\DeclareUrlCommand\class{%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBigBreaks}{\do\.}%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBreaks}{\do\.}%
  }
\DeclareUrlCommand\filedir{%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBigBreaks}{\do\\}%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBreaks}{\do\\}%
  }
\DeclareUrlCommand\method{%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBigBreaks}{}%
  \renewcommand{\UrlBreaks}{}%
  }

\begin{document}
text text text text text text text text text text text text text text tex \class{java.util.String}

text text text text text text text text text text text text text text tex \filedir{C:\a\b\c}

text text text text text text text text text text text text text text \method{public getText()}
\end{document}

Output:

enter image description here

With the url package is there a way to add e.g. parenthesis to the methods automatically so that \method{hello} becomes "hello()"? — johnrl, Mar 27 '14 at 16:24
@johnrl Yes. In the definition of \method add a line \renewcommand{\UrlRight}{()}% — karlkoeller, Mar 28 '14 at 05:50
thanks, but that seems to insert two different paren sizes. In particular, the right paren is larger than the left. I solved with \renewcommand{\UrlRight}{$()$}%, but I'm not sure it's the best way. — johnrl, Mar 29 '14 at 10:42
@johnrl I can't reproduce that issue. For me, both parenthesis have same size. — karlkoeller, Mar 29 '14 at 10:45
Strange. However, it works with the math-mode hack, so I'm happy. Thanks! — johnrl, Mar 29 '14 at 11:04
Another little improvement: how to only add the parenthesis if not manually added? E.g. \method{hello} should produce hello() but \method{hello(int)} should produce hello(int) and not hello(int)(). — johnrl, Mar 30 '14 at 17:28

Macros for formatting & breaking classnames, file paths etc?

1 Answers1

Linked