\ref with ranges into enumerate environment

Question

I would like to reference items from a list and get a compressed (not that important) and sorted output:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
\item \label{a} Was.
\item \label{b} It.
\item \label{c} A.
\item \label{d} Cat.
\item \label{e} I.
\item \label{f} Saw.
\end{enumerate}

See points \ref{a, b, c, e, f}.
\end{document}

Obviously, this is not producing the desired result, which would be "See points 1, 2, 3, 5, 6." The compressed version "1-3" is not that important for me; but hyperref working would be nice. Compare to the cite package. Which even allows/removes blanks in the argument, very nice.

I know cleveref but I am not sure if it can help here, as I do not (want to) define a new environment - and I am not sure how to tell cleveref that it should track this new environment, anyways...

I want to use this inside another command, so "See points \ref{a}, \ref{b}" is not an option. And yucky, anyways.

Searched the Internet, found nil. Many thx.

The reference to the cite package is somewhat confusing, since what you're trying to do is not to generate numeric (sorted, compressed) citation call-outs. — Mico, Nov 29 '16 at 17:41

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 29 '16 at 17:39

Cleveref provides a good format out of the box and allows for customisation to accommodate your request.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{cleveref}
\crefname{enumi}{point}{points} % default is "item"
\crefrangelabelformat{enumi}{#3#1#4--#5#2#6} % default uses "to" instead of "--"
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
\item \label{a} Was.
\item \label{b} It.
\item \label{c} A.
\item \label{d} Cat.
\item \label{e} I.
\item \label{f} Saw.
\end{enumerate}

See \cref{a,b,c,e,f}.
\end{document}

Note that no spaces are allowed after the commas (spaces can be used in labels!).

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

You can process the CSV list using LaTeX3:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xparse,hyperref}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\AtBeginDocument{
  \let\oldref\ref
  \RenewDocumentCommand{\ref}{ m }{
    \def\@csvsep{\def\@csvsep{, ~}}% https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/89187/5764
    \clist_map_inline:nn { #1 } { \@csvsep \oldref{##1}}% https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/159132/5764
  }
}
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}
  \item \label{a} Was.
  \item \label{b} It.
  \item \label{c} A.
  \item \label{d} Cat.
  \item \label{e} I.
  \item \label{f} Saw.
\end{enumerate}

See points \ref{a, b, c, e, f} or~\ref{d}.

\end{document}

\ref with ranges into enumerate environment

2 Answers2