Newcommand to replace defined words for gendering

Question

Following this thread new command with cases / conditionals / 'if... then's and the answer of Peter Grill I tried to change the example to another usecase: to make gendering more easy in my document. There is a gender package available, but it does not provide what I need.

I setup the code in the following way, but I get always errors or the document is completely broken if it compiles (tried multiple things, like changing the "1" to an "m" - but obviously I have no clue what I am doing):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xstring}
\newcommand{\genderhelp}[1]{%
\IfEqCase{#1}{%
        {experten}{Experteninnen}%
        {forscher}{Forscherinnen}%
        % you can add more cases here as desired
}[\PackageError{tree}{Undefined option to genderhelp: #1}{}]%
}%
\begin{document}
\genderhelp{experten}
\section{Die Hilfe von \genderhelp{forscher}}
\end{document}

So what I would like to achieve: give the command one word I already defined, and it outputs the defined string... Of course I could go search and replace all over the document, but that seems not the right way to go - also e.g. if the writing with the "*" is not correct anymore, I would only have one place to change that. And of course some more learning, how this Latex works ;)

Thanks a lot!

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 10 '21 at 09:01

If you simply want to replace a word by another there is no need for complicated xstring searches:

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand\GENDERexperten{Experteninnen}
\newcommand\GENDERforscher{Forscherinnen}
\newcommand{\genderhelp}[1]{%
\ifcsname GENDER#1\endcsname
  \csname GENDER#1\endcsname
\else 
  \PackageError{tree}{Undefined option to genderhelp: #1}{}%
\fi}
\begin{document}
\genderhelp{experten}
\section{Die Hilfe von \genderhelp{forscher}}
\end{document}

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 10 '21 at 09:06

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xstring}

\NewDocumentCommand{\genderhelp}{m}{%
\IfEqCase{#1}{%
        {experten}{Experten*innen}%
        {forscher}{Forscher*innen}%
        % you can add more cases here as desired
}[\PackageError{tree}{Undefined option to genderhelp: #1}{}]%
}%

\begin{document}
\genderhelp{experten}

\section{Die Hilfe von \genderhelp{forscher}}

\end{document}

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 10 '21 at 09:58

The obvious problem is that \genderhelp, as you defined it, is fragile. You can use \DeclareRobustCommand instead of \newcommand.

A better way is with expl3.

\documentclass{article}
%\usepackage{xparse} % uncomment for LaTeX prior to 2020-10-01
\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand{\setgenderhelpers}{m}
 {
  \tl_gput_right:Nn \g_genderhelp_list_tl { #1 }
 }
\tl_new:N \g_genderhelp_list_tl
\NewDocumentCommand{\genderhelp}{m}
 {
  \str_case:nVF { #1 } \g_genderhelp_list_tl
   {
    \PackageError{tree}{Undefined option to genderhelp: #1}{}
   }
 }
\ExplSyntaxOff
\setgenderhelpers{
  {experten}{Experteninnen}
  {forscher}{Forscherinnen}
}
\begin{document}
\genderhelp{experten}
\section{Die Hilfe von \genderhelp{forscher}}
\end{document}

You see that the setting of the helpers is easier. With this approach you can define a list of helpers in the .sty file, but users can add to the list as needs arise using \setgenderhelpers in their document preamble.

that's freaking awesome! Thank you so much for this! It works like a charm — xannasavin, Sep 11 '21 at 09:33

Newcommand to replace defined words for gendering

3 Answers3