Re: user defined macro as @table argument

[Patrice Dumas]

On Fri, Sep 07, 2012 at 10:51:46PM +0000, Karl Berry wrote:
> Hi Patrice,
> 
>      @macro keyword{kw}
>      ...
>      @table @keyword
> 
> Vincent should use m4 :).

In that case, user defined @-commands work also nicely, too bad ;-).

> The only thing I would say that might be helpful is if texi2any could
> notice if the @table argument is in fact defined as a macro and give an
> error (not just a warning) at that point.  If it's straightforward to
> do, would make things a lot clearer for the user than doing the
> expansion.  

I am a bit reluctant here, as there may be valid cases of using user
defined @-commands in that context.  For example, to substitute the
argument of the @table in a context complex enough that @alias
does not work.  Even a warning would seem dubious to me.  Vincent advice
was to give a message to the user too, though.

I can try a warning, but I would have preferred if there was a notion of
'pedantic' warnings since it seems like that to me.

> But I guess maybe the macro expansion has already happened
> before the code for @table is even being executed, so it wouldn't be so
> easy?

Even though I don't know how hard it would be, I think that it could be 
possible, as the expansion of macros and the parsing happen in one pass,
so the context of the Parser is available to macro expansion code.

> I'll see about giving the error in TeX and saying something about this
> in the documentation, in any case.

Ok.

-- 
Pat