Re: [AUCTeX] reftex-do-citation format

[David Kastrup]

Ralf Angeli <address@hidden> writes:

> * Tyler Smith (2007-02-16) writes:
>
>> I'm new to Auctex, and I have a question regarding inserting
>> citations. When I insert multiple citations they are automatically
>> separated by a single ','. This is a problem when I have enough
>> citations to overflow a single line, since without a space in between
>> they cannot be properly auto-filled.
>
> Can somebody please verify that spaces in the argument of \cite are
> valid in any case?  Once this is settled we can think about changing
> the default or making it configurable.

latex.ltx says:
address@hidden
  address@hidden@empty
  address@hidden@address@hidden:=#2\do
    address@hidden@citea{,address@hidden }%
     address@hidden@address@hidden@empty}%
     address@hidden@address@hidden
     address@hidden@address@hidden@font\bfseries ?}%
       address@hidden
       address@hidden@warning
         {Citation address@hidden' on page \thepage \space undefined}}%
       address@hidden@ofmt{\csname address@hidden@citeb\endcsname}}}}{#1}}

Now the address@hidden@address@hidden@empty} seems to
be good for pretty much nothing except skipping leading blanks (itwill
also convert a label {ab} into ab, and {ab}c into abc, but I don't
think that those are considered important in this context.
Personally, I prefer something like
\romannumeral`\^^@ for skipping one blank, since it will not affect
any braces, but then I am known for my partiality for \romannumeral.

Anyway, I think this code would correspond to the following change
note in ltbibl.dtx:

% \changes{LaTeX2.09}{1991/11/06}
%     {added code to remove a leading blank}

> We are currently in course of setting up a repository with the
> RefTeX sources.  In addition the build system will be changed.

Uh, it will?  I really must learn to listen better to the discussions
on the developer list.

> So it might take some time till you see the next release.

But we had the "start" problem with quotes in tex-mik IIRC, and the
recent contribution of Carsten (for which the papers are in the queue,
and Carsten has historic files in AUCTeX, anyway, so we can pretty
much put his contribution in without delay without affecting the
overall unpleasantness of the current situation).

> Until that happens you will have to deal with this manually,
> overwrite the function definition with a changed one, or change the
> original Lisp file and recompile it.

Yup.  Anyway, I would consider it more important for RefTeX to
cooperate with docTeX-mode.  It is completely unusable at the moment
for that since it will not consider structural information in
comments.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum