IdlePhysicist, 2019
Go-latex is a simple parser that reads Go source files, extracts LaTeX commands and replaces them with their unicode equivalents.
Go-latex can take a directory, or a .go file as its input argument. Currently the program accepts upper and lowercase Greek letters, as well as ∇ (nabla) and ℏ (h-bar) the reduced Planck's constant, both symbols heavily used in physics.
A variable can contain LaTeX macros provided the immediate following character is one of the following:
- A backslash i.e. another LaTeX macro
- An underscore
- A space
- Or a Capital letter
The only kind of character that cannot follow a macro is a lowercase letter! While this is an annoyance to some it can promote the writing of more readable code by using _ and capitalisations to break up variable names containing several words.
Note on string literals
It was pointed out to me that go-latex will replace anything that looks like a LaTeX macro in the parsed source code, even if it is inside a string literal. This is by design so that the user can print unicode characters to the terminal.
The example used to bring this to my attention was string formatted as a Windows file path, while this is not an issue to me as a UNIX user but if you are a Windows user who wishes to use this software, then please be careful of the directory names in your paths.
Take for example the following Go source file.
package test
func \Xi() {
return \`\xi latex is \pi \phi\`
}
func \gammaDot() {
return \`\gammaDot`
}
func Frat() {
return "\kappa\gamma\eta"
func main() {
\hbar_star := 0.0562
x := \Xi()
y := \gammaDot()
}Well after running go-latex on it you would get the following.
package test
func Ξ() {
return \`ξ latex is π φ\`
}
func γDot() {
return \`γDot`
}
func Frat() {
return "κγη"
func main() {
ℏ_star := 0.0562
x := Ξ()
y := γDot()
}