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Where and how does TeX define the character sequence `` and '' ?

From the TeX * prompt, how does one "show" the definition?

David Carlisle
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acarlow
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  • @egreg The problem is I never would have searched for the answer with anything from that question. I suspect I'm not the only one. – acarlow Jun 30 '14 at 17:51
  • Closing this one as duplicate doesn't mean it's removed. The answer there covers this case. – egreg Jun 30 '14 at 17:52
  • Understood. And I agree that this question's answer is a "subset" of the answer provided in the other question. – acarlow Jun 30 '14 at 17:53
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    Closing as duplicate is not a judgement on the question's value. Just a way to keep information as tight as possible. – egreg Jun 30 '14 at 17:56

1 Answers1

9

You can't. \show shows definitions at the macro layer but `` is implemented as a ligature and becomes an open double quote the same way that ff becomes an ff ligature. Thus the information is defined per font in the font metrics.

so the nearest you can do is:

$ tex
This is TeX, Version 3.14159265 (TeX Live 2014) (preloaded format=tex)
**\setbox0\hbox{``}\showbox0
> \box0=
\hbox(6.94444+0.0)x5.00002
.\tenrm \ (ligature ``)

! OK.
<*> \setbox0\hbox{``}\showbox0

?
David Carlisle
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