Re: [AUCTeX] Insert counter in Emacs tex file

[Joost Kremers]

On Fri, Aug 24 2018, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
> Hi all...
>
> In a MusiXTeX document, you insert several \bar(s) TeX commands, 
> that I
> manually count typing a number next to each occurence of `\bar':
>
>  \bar %1
>  ...
>  \bar %2
>  ...
>  \bar %3
>
> and so on.  Of course, it gets very uncomfortable when editing 
> the document and
> adding, in the middle of it, new \bar-s: then I have to re-write 
> all the
> numbers, that may be dozens or hundreds...!  So I was wondering 
> if was possible
> to have an automatic \bar numbering within my Emacs tex file...

I have a bunch of functions to help me with something similar. The 
following function allows me to renumber counters used as labels 
in a TeX document:

,----
| (defun jk-renumber-counters (start regexp)
|   "Renumber counters.
| Renumbering starts at START.  REGEXP describes the counters to 
 be
| renumbered.  The actual number must be enclosed in a group."
|   (save-excursion
|     (goto-char (point-min))
|     ;; because we incf the counter before using it, we need to 
        adjust:
|     (let ((counter (1- start))
|           (counters (make-hash-table :test 'equal))
|           fn)
|       (while (re-search-forward regexp nil t)
|         (setq fn (match-string 1))
|         (replace-match (or (gethash fn counters)
|                            (puthash fn (format "%s" (cl-incf 
                            counter)) counters))
|                        nil nil nil 1)))))
`----

This assumes that the counters are also used for referencing, so 
both need to be renumbered correctly, hence the hash table. If you 
don't reference your examples, the function could be simplified. 
The REGEXP argument is used to identify the counters. In my case, 
I use labels of the form `ex:01`, `ex:02`, etc. When run, this 
function renumbers all counters from the start of the document. 
I've added a START argument because sometimes I don't want the 
numbers to start at 1.

The function is rather dumb, because it doesn't distinguish 
between a label definition and a reference, so if the reference 
occurs before the definition, the numbering might be unintuitive. 
(In my case, that rarely happens, so it's good enough for me. ;-)

I also have a Yasnippet template that inserts a new label and 
automatically increases the counter. On first use, it goes through 
the document to look for the highest existing counter, so as not 
to create labels with the same number.

I can post all of the code if you're interested.



--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments