CODEWITHSUNDEEP
latexescapingtex
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영

Reputation: 141220

To escape many _ in LaTeX efficiently

How can you escape _ without the use of \_?

This is the example of the question

word_a_a_a_a_a_b_c_dd

There is one function which you can use for this. However, I cannot remember its name.

Upvotes: 25

Views: 51105

Answers (7)

Josef
Josef

Reputation: 11

Most methods above fail when the text comes from another macro, because one does not want to list the macro name. The \url{} command works, but if one does not want a link generated, then one can use also \nolinkurl{} from the hyperref package.

For example you could use the macro \jobname to print the base name of your main LaTeX file. This will print some funny characters in place of the underscores, if the filename contains underscores. To print the filename properly, you could wrap the macro \jobname in \nolinkurl.

For example, if the filename is "my_project.tex" you could:

  1. add \usepackage{hyperref} to the preamble.
  2. use \nolinkurl{\jobname} to print the filename "my_project" in your document.

Admittedly, this is not a good answer to the original question on how to escape many underscores, since you won't be able to put a long text in \nolinkurl.

Upvotes: 1

John Feminella
John Feminella

Reputation: 311536

Are you thinking of the underscore package, which redefines the underscore symbol so that you don't have to escape it in text mode? See here.

Upvotes: 32

jakun
jakun

Reputation: 674

It's funny how this is a question and answer site for programming questions but nobody has suggested programming yet.

You could define your own command which replaces the underscore tokens:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\filename}[1]{\emph{\replunderscores{#1}}}

\makeatletter
% \expandafter for the case that the filename is given in a command
\newcommand{\replunderscores}[1]{\expandafter\@repl@underscores#1_\relax}

\def\@repl@underscores#1_#2\relax{%
    \ifx \relax #2\relax
        % #2 is empty => finish
        #1%
    \else
        % #2 is not empty => underscore was contained, needs to be replaced
        #1%
        \textunderscore
        % continue replacing
        % #2 ends with an extra underscore so I don't need to add another one
        \@repl@underscores#2\relax
    \fi
}
\makeatother


\begin{document}
    \filename{__init__.py}
\end{document}

Upvotes: 5

Peter
Peter

Reputation: 132257

Typically you want a monospaced font in such situations, so you can use this:

\verb|word_a_a_a_a_a_b_c_dd|

Upvotes: 3

Vebjorn Ljosa
Vebjorn Ljosa

Reputation: 18008

I couldn't get the underscore package to work, so I used the url package:

\usepackage{url}
\urlstyle{sf}  % or rm, depending on your font

...

Foo \url{word_a_a_a_a_a_b_c_dd} bar.

Upvotes: 14

Eamon Nerbonne
Eamon Nerbonne

Reputation: 48066

You may also be thinking of the lstlisting or verbatim environments, which are commonly used to display code - which can contain underscores. However, these environments do a lot more than just "escape" underscores.

Upvotes: 1

Martijn
Martijn

Reputation: 5663

Other than verbatim I wouldn't know.

Verbatim environment:

\begin{verbatim}
  word_a_a_a_a_a_b_c_dd
\end{verbatim}

Inline:

\verb|word_a_a_a_a_a_b_c_dd|

Upvotes: 29

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