Re: Provide style file for babel support for Brazilian

[Arash Esbati]

Hi Gustavo,

Gustavo Barros <gusbrs.2016@gmail.com> writes:

> "brazilian.el" and "portuguese.el" add symbols for four convenience 
> macros which are defined by `babel' in `portuges.ldf', namely `\ord', 
> `\orda', `\ro' and `\ra'.  While I had correctly reported they do not 
> receive arguments, I started playing with them now (the style files made 
> me remember they exist), and they do however gobble the following space. 
> Hence they should be inserted with trailing empty braces, or `nil' 
> argument in `TeX-add-symbols'.

This is not the general approach in AUCTeX.  If you want to have braces
after (certain) macros, please use the variables `TeX-insert-braces' or
`TeX-insert-braces-alist':

    User Option: TeX-insert-braces

        If non-nil, append a empty pair of braces after inserting a
        macro with no arguments.

    User Option: TeX-insert-braces-alist

        Control the insertion of a pair of braces after a macro on a per
        macro basis.

        This variable is an alist. Each element is a cons cell, whose
        car is the macro name, and the cdr is non-nil or nil, depending
        on whether a pair of braces should be, respectively, appended or
        not to the macro.

        If a macro has an element in this variable, TeX-parse-macro will
        use its value to decide what to do, whatever the value of the
        variable TeX-insert-braces

> A comment on this though.  I'm not sure how important this is, or if 
> these commands should be simply considered as outdated, since these 
> macros are defined as:
>
> #+begin_src latex
> \def\ord{$^{\rm o}$}
> \def\orda{$^{\rm a}$}
> \let\ro\ord\let\ra\orda
> #+end_src

I think they should be defined as:

    \def\ord{\textsuperscript{o}}
    \def\orda{\textsuperscript{o}}

Consider this example:

    \documentclass{article}
    \usepackage[brazil]{babel}
    \begin{document}
    \noindent  1\ord\ e 2\orda \\
    {\sffamily 1\ord\ e 2\orda} \\
    {\ttfamily 1\ord\ e 2\orda}

    \def\ord{\textsuperscript{o}}
    \def\orda{\textsuperscript{o}}

    \noindent  1\ord\ e 2\orda \\
    {\sffamily 1\ord\ e 2\orda} \\
    {\ttfamily 1\ord\ e 2\orda}
    \end{document}

With the current definitions, the macros don't respect any font families
around them when used; I think this is a misbehaviour.

> Koma-script literally does not let me use it, throwing me a "Class 
> scrbook Error: undefined old font command `\rm'." (short of 
> `enabledeprecatedfontcommands', which these macros are not worth, of 
> course).  If it had let me, I'd still get a due warning from `nag'.
>
> In light of this, do you think these macros should be even kept in the 
> style files?

I don't think that AUCTeX styles should judge what is supported and what
not.  We just cater for things a package provides, and if Koma throws an
error on \rm, bad for Koma users, but not all users rely on Koma.

I think the best solution is to contact the babel-brazilian developers
and talk with them about a proper solution.  Do you want to take this?
I see this already[1]

Best, Arash

Footnotes:
[1]  https://github.com/latex3/babel/issues/137