mactex and {\it ...}



>>>>> "Barton" == Barton Willis <willisb at unk.edu> writes:

    Barton> Why does the 'tex' function use {\it ...} to tex just about everything? 
    Barton> When
    Barton> did this start and why?  Maybe it's not wrong, but it generates lengthy
    Barton> TeX  that can be frustrating to hand-tune. A simple example:

I get the same answer as you for the current CVS version.  5.9.3 uses
the previous version, and a diff shows that this was changed:

    -(defun tex-stripdollar(sym &aux )
    -  (or (symbolp sym) (return-from tex-stripdollar sym))
    +(defun tex-stripdollar (x)
    +  (let ((s (maybe-invert-string-case (symbol-name (tex-stripdollar0 x)))))
    +    (concatenate 'string "{\\it " s "}")))
    +
    +(defun tex-stripdollar0 (sym &aux )
    +  (or (symbolp sym) (return-from tex-stripdollar0  sym))

Robert made this change and the change log seems to indicate it was
intentional:

 (4) Unrecognized function and variable names: enclose within {\it
     ... } instead of emitting name as it stands


Ray