[AUCTeX] A Bug in AUCTeX?

[Ernst Joachim Weniger]

To the AUCTeX Mailing List

Email: address@hidden

                                                       July 8, 2005

Dear AUCTeX Mailing List,

I want to report a strange behavior of AUCTeX in combination with Emacs,
Xemacs, and LaTeX2e.

I am using a Fujitsu-Siemens Scenic W 620 PC with an Intel Pentium IV
chip. My operating system is Suse 9.3 Linux (the most recent version of
Suse Linux).

My favorite editor is Xemacs. In my /home/jo/.xemacs/init.el file I call
LaTeX macros and AUCTeX via the lines:

>   (load-file "/home/jo/.xemacs/Latex.MACS")
> 
>   (load-file "/home/jo/.xemacs/Auctex.EJW")

My file /home/jo/.xemacs/Auctex.EJW looks as follows:   

> ;;;;; Compare /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/auctex/latex.el
> ;;;;; or      /usr/share/xemacs/xemacs-packages/lisp/auctex/latex.el
> 
>   (require 'tex-site)
>   (add-hook 'TeX-mode-hook
>                   '(lambda ()
>                          (LaTeX-math-mode)
>                          ))
> 
>   (defcustom LaTeX-equation-label ""
>     "*Default prefix to equation labels."
>     :group 'LaTeX-label
>     :type 'string)
>   (make-variable-buffer-local 'LaTeX-equation-label)
> 
>   (defcustom LaTeX-eqnarray-label LaTeX-equation-label
>     "*Default prefix to eqnarray labels."
>     :group 'LaTeX-label
>     :type 'string)
>    (make-variable-buffer-local 'LaTeX-eqnarray-label)
> 
> ;;  (setq LaTeX-section-hook
> ;;        '(LaTeX-section-heading
> ;;       LaTeX-section-title
> ;;       LaTeX-section-section
> ;;       LaTeX-section-label))
> ;;
> ;;   :type 'hook
> ;;   :options '(LaTeX-section-heading
> ;;           LaTeX-section-title
> ;;           LaTeX-section-section
> ;;           LaTeX-section-label))
> 
>   (defcustom LaTeX-section-label
>     '(("chapter" . "Cha:")
>       ("section" . "Sec:")
>       ("subsection" . "Sub:"))
>   "Default prefix when asking for a label.
> 
>   If it is a string, it it used unchanged for all kinds of sections.
>   If it is nil, no label is inserted.
>   If it is a list, the list is searched for a member whose car is equal
>   to the name of the sectioning command being inserted.  The cdr is then
>   used as the prefix.  If the name is not found, or if the cdr is nil,
>   no label is inserted."
>     :group 'LaTeX-label
>     :type '(choice (const :tag "none" nil)
>                  (string :format "%v" :tag "Common")
>                  (repeat :menu-tag "Level specific"
>                          :format "\n%v%i"
>                          (cons :format "%v"
>                                (string :tag "Type")
>                                (choice :tag "Prefix"
>                                        (const :tag "none" nil)
>                                        (string  :format "%v"))))))
> 
>   (setq hilit-LaTeX-commands t)
>   (setq hilit-AmSLaTeX-commands t)
> 
> (setq minibuffer-max-depth nil)

When I edit a LaTeX file, I am by default in math mode. If I now
type "`o", I do not get "\omega" as I should, but rather "`o not
defined". However, I get the correct result "\omega" by typing "`w" which
should not exist at all according to the AUCTeX documentation.

I am using the following version of Xemacs:

>  Emacs  : XEmacs 21.5  (beta18) "chestnut" (+CVS-20041021) 
>           [Lucid] (i386-suse-linux, Mule) of Tue Mar 22 2005 on mozart
>  Package: AUCTeX sumo-2005-01-18
>  
>  current state:
>  ==============
>  (setq
>   window-system 'x
>   LaTeX-version "2e"
>   TeX-style-path '("style/" "auto/" "~/TeX/style/" "~/TeX/auto/"
>                 "/usr/share/xemacs/xemacs-packages/etc/auctex/style/"
>                 "/usr/share/xemacs/xemacs-packages/etc/auctex/auto/")
>   TeX-auto-save nil
>   TeX-parse-self nil
>   TeX-master t
>   )

On my PC, I also have Emacs installed, although I normally prefer to work
with Xemacs. In order to find out whether the strange behavior of "`o"
and "`w" is an Xemacs or an AUCTeX problem, I also tried it on Emacs, but
there I observed that "`o" and "`w" work as they should according to the
AUCTeX documentation.

I am using the following version of Emacs:

>  Emacs  : GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i586-suse-linux, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
>   of 2005-03-22 on lorien
>  Package: AUC TeX 11.14
>  
>  current state:
>  ==============
>  (setq
>   window-system 'x
>   LaTeX-version "2e"
>   TeX-style-path '("style/" "auto/"
>                    "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/auctex/style/"
>                    "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/auctex/auto/")
>   TeX-auto-save nil
>   TeX-parse-self nil
>   TeX-master t
>   )

So, it seems that Xemacs and Emacs use different versions of AUCTeX on my
PC (AUCTeX sumo-2005-01-18 vs  AUC TeX 11.14), and I cannot decide
whether AUCTeX or Xemacs is to be blamed for the irritating behavior of
"`o" and "`w", respectively.   

In my /home/jo/.emacs file, I call LaTeX macros and AUCTeX in exactly the
same way as I do it in the case of Xemacs, i.e., via the lines

>  (load-file "/home/jo/.xemacs/Auctex.EJW")
>  (load-file "/home/jo/.xemacs/Latex.MACS")


Out of curiosity, I compared the math mode commands for greek letters a
little more systematically. I obtained the following results:

  Keys   Xemacs       Emacs
  ===============================
  `a     \alpha       \alpha
  `b     \beta        \beta    
  `d     \delta       \delta
  `e     \epsilon     \epsilon
  `f     \phi         \phi
  `g     \gamma       \gamma
  `h     \eta         \eta
  `i     \in          \in
  `j     \theta       not defined
  `k     \kappa       \kappa
  `l     \lambda      \lambda
  `m     \mu          \mu
  `n     \nu          \nu
  `o     not defined  \omega
  `p     \pi          \pi
  `q     \chi         \theta
  `r     \rho         \rho
  `s     \sigma       \sigma
  `t     \tau         \tau
  `u     \upsilon     \upsilon
  `v     not defined  not defined
  `w     \omega       not defined
  `x     \xi          \chi
  `y     \psi         \psi
  `z     \zeta        \zeta 

So, there are differences for "`j", "`o", "`q", "`w", and "`x".

I am wondering whether these inconsistencies could be related to language
and encoding problems. Both on Emacs and on Xemacs I use the command

>  (set-language-environment "Latin-1")

in my configuration files.

I hope that these things are useful for you.

Best regards

Ernst Joachim Weniger

#-------------------------------------------------------|
|  PD Dr. Ernst Joachim Weniger                         |
|  Institut für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie   |
|  Universität Regensburg                               |
|  D-93040 Regensburg, Germany                          |
|  Tel:    +49 (0)941-943-4722                          |
|  Fax:    +49 (0)941-943-4719                          |
|  Email:  address@hidden     | 
#-------------------------------------------------------|