Message-Id: <199402111737.AA00619@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Fri, 11 Feb 1994 16:10:47 CST
From: Alex Stark <jas1@eng.cam.ac.uk>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Keeping old optional argument formats.
Status: R

In Message Fri, 11 Feb 1994 16:33:00 +0100, Frank Poppe <POPPE@SWOV.NL> writes:


>How is LaTeXxyz to know that this isn't a user who wants to use the old
>syntax to get the text "toc={=--?12gobblegobblegook}" in his t-o-c?
>My point is that, if possible, the syntax \section[short]{long} should
>remain valid, also if `short' contains an equal sign.
>

I do feel that this is a case of forcing a change. I think that we can
forget about this kind of compatability problem using the following
strategy.

%%%%%%%%%%%%

Document Conversion Utility.

Author: someone who can program these things in portable C.

Purpose: Take a .tex file and perform a search-and-replace of
         patterns defined in a syntax file.

Example: change all occurences of `\section[' to `\section[toc='

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I don't think that an expert programmer would take long over that. If a more
complex version could be produced, rather like regular expressions in emacs,
then we could have a Latex2.09 to Latex2e. Then my colleagues might not
complain about changing all those \bf commands in math mode.

Alex.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
J. Alex Stark          Signal Processing and Communications Laboratory
                                             Department of Engineering
email: jas1@uk.ac.cam.eng                      University of Cambridge
Tel:   [+44]223 3 32767                             Trumpington Street
Fax:   [+44]223 3 32662                         Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK