Delimiters: right height, right spacing and right behaviour with exponents

Question

Summary

I would like to have a efficient macro for parenthesis that I can use in all of my documents and macros.

The issues and my attempts

My first solution and its drawback

For parenthesis, I'm using the macro

\newcommand{\pth}[1]{\left(#1\right)}

But, in some cases, this macro induces extra horizontal space. For instance,

\newcommand{\numberOfCycles}[2]{\mathscr{N}_{#1}\left(#2\right)}

produces a extra space after the "N", as shown here

My new solution and its drawback

That's why I change my macro \pth to \newPth defined by

\newcommand{\newPth}[1]{\mathopen{}\left(#1\right)\mathclose{}}

But, this macro seems to be not compatible with exponents. See this MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\pth}[1]{\left(#1\right)}
\newcommand{\numberOfCycles}[2]{\mathrm{N}_{#1}\left(#2\right)}
\newcommand{\newPth}[1]{\mathopen{}\left(#1\right)\mathclose{}}
\begin{document}
[
\numberOfCycles{i}{\sigma}
]
[
\newPth{1 + \frac{1}{n}}^n 
]
\end{document}

My questions

Generally, I would like to receive advice on theses issues.
Does someone has a solution that would cover these two cases?

Sorry to have to rain on your parade, but there are tried-and-tested reasons for not using \left and \right indiscriminately each and every time a "fence" symbol is encountered. See, e.g., Is it ever bad to use \left and \right? as well as Automatic left and right commands and Macro for \left( and \right). — Mico, May 09 '20 at 14:45
see the mleftright package for a version of these macros that takes care of superscripts etc, but as a general advice not using left and right so often is a good idea. — David Carlisle, May 09 '20 at 18:33

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 01 '21 at 13:41

1

I suppose that your \pth macro is for special purposes, not for all accurrences of parentheses. You can try this:

\def\pth#1{\mathopen{}\mathord{\left(#1\right)}}

answered Feb 01 '21 at 13:41

wipet

74,238

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '21 at 12:21

1

Finally, I chose

\DeclarePairedDelimiter\myParentheses{\lparen}{\rparen}
\newcommand{\pth}[1]{\myParentheses*{#1}}

from the package math tools.

answered Feb 13 '21 at 12:21

Colas

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