References: <4D1F6F9D.9020209@laposte.net>                                     
            <4D1F8145.2010308@morningstar2.co.uk>                              
            <4D1F8BFD.5000803@laposte.net> <4D1F8DFE.70205@morningstar2.co.uk> 
            <20110101204323.GA14218@khaled-laptop>                             
            <4D1F94F8.2010306@morningstar2.co.uk>                              
            <703780.66667.qm@web82005.mail.mud.yahoo.com>                      
            <4D1F99C9.8000609@gmx.de> <4D206576.2080206@morningstar2.co.uk>
            <473826.54913.qm@web82001.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
            <4D20DEAF.8070103@morningstar2.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1474993334-1294003928=:88547"
Message-ID:  <32653.88547.qm@web82004.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Date:         Sun, 2 Jan 2011 13:32:08 -0800
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
From: Paul Thompson <patjah@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: LaTeX3 and engines
To: LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de
In-Reply-To:  <4D20DEAF.8070103@morningstar2.co.uk>
Precedence: list
Status: R

--0-1474993334-1294003928=:88547
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Yes, I understand that stuff is under development, and that is a period during 
which a) things are not always dependable and b) things are known by the 
developer and no one else.  So eventually this primitive or the more high-level 
tool discussed below.

 Paul Thompson


________________________________
From: Joseph Wright <joseph.wright@morningstar2.co.uk>
To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Cc: Paul Thompson <patjah@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Sent: Sun, January 2, 2011 2:23:11 PM
Subject: Re: LaTeX3 and engines

On 02/01/2011 15:27, Paul Thompson wrote:
> There is really a somewhat deeper issue.  Like many who use LaTeX for more 
than
> superficial stuff (I wrote a class file newlfm and several sty files, most of
> which are not much used), I can read documentation and figger it out somewhat.
> However, knowing of the EXISTENCE of a tool is really the key, not how it is
> used.  How are people to learn that specific primitives exist?  It's not in 
the
> LaTeX Companion, which is my starting point.

As Arno has already commented, this is a primitive, so it belongs in the pdfTeX 
manual and not in anything from LaTeX. I'd also note that it was introduced 
relatively recently (compared at least to the age of LaTeX2e), so it's not 
surprising that it's not there.

As an aside, one of the points of the expl3 work is to provide a LaTeX 
programming language in which everything is documented if it's available. That 
doesn't mean that all of the primitives are documented in expl3: the other point 
is that many of them are not really ideal for direct use. \pdfstrcmp is a case 
in point: the expl3 interface is called \str_if_eq:xxTF (and related functions), 
as it's not excatly obvious that a string comparison yields a number which can 
then be used in an \ifnum :-)
-- Joseph Wright

--0-1474993334-1294003928=:88547
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Yes, I understand that stuff is under development, and that is a period during which a) things are not always dependable and b) things are known by the developer and no one else.&nbsp; So eventually this primitive or the more high-level tool discussed below.<br><div>&nbsp;</div>Paul Thompson<div><div style="font-family: verdana,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Joseph Wright &lt;joseph.wright@morningstar2.co.uk&gt;<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project &lt;LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE&gt;<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Paul Thompson
 &lt;patjah@SBCGLOBAL.NET&gt;<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sun, January 2, 2011 2:23:11 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: LaTeX3 and engines<br></font><br>
On 02/01/2011 15:27, Paul Thompson wrote:<br>&gt; There is really a somewhat deeper issue.&nbsp; Like many who use LaTeX for more than<br>&gt; superficial stuff (I wrote a class file newlfm and several sty files, most of<br>&gt; which are not much used), I can read documentation and figger it out somewhat.<br>&gt; However, knowing of the EXISTENCE of a tool is really the key, not how it is<br>&gt; used.&nbsp; How are people to learn that specific primitives exist?&nbsp; It's not in the<br>&gt; LaTeX Companion, which is my starting point.<br><br>As Arno has already commented, this is a primitive, so it belongs in the pdfTeX manual and not in anything from LaTeX. I'd also note that it was introduced relatively recently (compared at least to the age of LaTeX2e), so it's not surprising that it's not there.<br><br>As an aside, one of the points of the expl3 work is to provide a LaTeX programming language in which everything is documented if it's available.
 That doesn't mean that all of the primitives are documented in expl3: the other point is that many of them are not really ideal for direct use. \pdfstrcmp is a case in point: the expl3 interface is called \str_if_eq:xxTF (and related functions), as it's not excatly obvious that a string comparison yields a number which can then be used in an \ifnum :-)<br>-- Joseph Wright<br></div></div></div>
</div></body></html>
--0-1474993334-1294003928=:88547--