§1  Identifiers Verbatim à la WEB  Introduction  1

1. Introduction.

This macro files allows to write identifiers in a WEB like style, i.e. as |identifier|. The identifiers are typeset verbatim in the monospace type face. The macros and are available to activate and deactivate the special behaviour of the vertical bar.

2. This macro file uses the namespace .

3. These macros are supported. Send bug reports, comments and repairs.

The reference version may be retrieved via anonymous ftp from [130.83.47.112], directory . It’s placed there as a gzipped tar file. (The information on the IP number is dated March 13, 1995. It might have changed, also this is very unlikely. Use your friendly nameserver.)

4. This is freely distributable software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License in the file along with this package; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

5. But before we start we declare some shorthands for category codes. By declaring the at sign (‘ ’) as well as the underscore ‘( )’ as letters we can use them in our macros. (I agree with D. Knuth that is more readable than and in every case better than .) With the at sign we can use the “private” Plain macros and with the underscore we can make our own macros more readable. But as we have to restore these category codes at the end of this macro file we store their former values in control sequences. This method is better than to use a group because not all macros have to be defined global this way.

Only the first macro file read in defines the cseqs.

6. Let’s identify this macro file against the user and in the Log file.

7. The usual verbatim macros use to change the catcode of all special characters. We have to add ‘|’ to this list. The old meaning is stored in .

8. Now we can define ‘|’. This definition is a little bit tricky, as it redefines itself to to close the hbox. But if the hbox is ended, ‘|’ is restored to its original meaning. is given the original meaning of ‘|’. is the character from the current font that has the ASCII code of a vertical bar, sometimes this is a vertical bar.

9. We are finished; restore the catcodes and prevent from following garbage.

Identifiers Verbatim à la WEB

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