MathML: cannot produce multi-letter math identifier

[fatanassow]

This is not exactly a bug, but I suspect there may be no workaround, and is related to #83 and #85.

I'm using the MathML writer, and I have need for mathematical constants such as id. I need this to render as a constant, not an operator, since it can serve as an argument. If I simply write $id$, then the result is <mi>i</mi><mi>d</mi>, which is as it should be. What I need is something that translates to <mi>id</mi>.

I have been using \DeclareMathOperator or \operatorname for this, since it does indeed (wrongly) produce <mi>id</mi>, but I think because of other bugs I've reported this will be changed to produce <mo>id</mo> in the future...? Which leaves me with the problem of how to produce <mi>id</mi>.

In LaTeX I get this effect by doing something like

\newcommand{\id}{\mbox{id}}

but this produces

<mstyle mathvariant="normal">
    <mi>i</mi>
    <mi>d</mi>
</mstyle>

in Pandoc.

Is there a way to do this, or is it a genuine issue?

[jgm]

I hadn't realized that mbox's argument was interpreted as text mode.
The fix in 6fcaaf6 should work for you, I think.
Let me know if it's still a problem. It doesn't produce quite what you wanted, <mi>id</mi>, but rather <mtext mathvariant="normal">id</mtext>.

[jgm]

I could have mbox produce EIdentifier instead of EText.
Would that be better?

[jgm]

As far a I can see from tex documentation and experimenting, treating this as text is correct.

[fatanassow]

You're right: it makes sense that \mbox produces mtext. I only mentioned \mbox to show how I might get the right rendering in TeX. But I still don't know the answer to my original question: how can I produce a multi-letter identifier like <mi>id</mi>?

[jgm]

+++ Frank Atanassow [Feb 10 16 00:00 ]:

You're right: it makes sense that \mbox produces mtext. But how can I
produce something like id?

I don't think there's any way to do it.

[fatanassow]

Since TeX doesn't really seem to distinguish semantics like the difference between an identifier and a box of text, maybe it is worth introducing a macro, say, \MathIdentifier, which translates to an EIdentifier?

[jgm]

It's an artificial solution, but it makes sense to me.

+++ Frank Atanassow [Feb 10 16 10:39 ]:

Since TeX doesn't really seem to distinguish semantics like the
difference between an identifier and a box of text, maybe it is worth
introducing a macro, say \MathIdentifier, which translates to an
EIdentifier?

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References

1. MathML: cannot produce multi-letter math identifier #86 (comment)