Patching footnotes fails with polyglossia and Hebrew.

[dcpurton]

The following MWE gives a warning about patching footnotes.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
\setdefaultlanguage{english}
\setotherlanguage{hebrew}
\setmainfont{Linux Libertine O}
\begin{document}
Paragraph Hebrew:

\begin{hebrew}
  בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ.
\end{hebrew}

BIDI Hebrew: \texthebrew{בראשית}.
\end{document}

[plk]

Hmm, @josephwright - any idea? Looks like hebrew isn't that well supported in polyglossia anyway but that's a confusing message nevertheless.

[dcpurton]

It looks like it affects all RTL languages (arabic, farsi, urdu, etc.)

You can also trigger the warning by loading the bidi package without polyglossia.

[moewew]

Maybe this is also at least tangentially related to #157.

On TeX.SX there is Biblatex authoryear-icomp doesn't work as expected with polyglossia hebrew support on.

[dcpurton]

@plk, I might have been a bit hasty. This certainly fixes some problems (like dcpurton/biblatex-sbl#49), but the ibidtracker still doesn't seem to behave correctly. I'll keep looking into it.

[dcpurton]

Got it, I think! \toggletrue{blx@footnote} needs to be inside a group, otherwise it remains true after the footnote. Sorry! I'll create another pull request.

[plk]

Ok, please base it on the last request as it's already merged ...

[dcpurton]

Will do. But I'm having trouble with the macro patch :(.

The bidi macro looks like this:

\long\def\@footnotetext#1{%
  \footdir@write
  \footdir@fntext{\bidi@footdir@footnote}%
  \stepcounter{footdir@label}%
  \footdir@fntext{\bidi@footdir@footnote}%
  \footdir@toks{#1}%
  \footdir@toks\expandafter
    {\the\expandafter\footdir@toks
     \expandafter \zref@labelbyprops
     \expandafter{\thefootdir@label}{abspage}}%
     \expandafter\footdir@ORG@bidi@footnotetext
     \expandafter{\the\footdir@toks}}

The \toggletrue{blx@footnote} needs to be inserted before the #1. Except using #1 as a hook in patchcmd fails (even if I don't use docsvlist).

Any ideas?

[plk]

@moewew ?

[dcpurton]

I posted on tsx: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/366616/patchcmd-1-as-hook-and-atendpreamble

[dcpurton]

I've come up with what I think is a suitable fix. I'll do a little more testing this time... Sorry!

This is the current proposed patch. Feel free to comment.

diff --git a/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty b/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty
index 398136c..33f0027 100644
--- a/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty
+++ b/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty
@@ -75,6 +75,25 @@
 
 %% Compatibility
 
+\catcode`\#=12
+\def\blx@patchbidifootnotes{%
+  \patchcmd\@footnotetext
+    {#1}
+    {\toggletrue{blx@footnote}#1}
+    {\togglefalse{blx@tempa}}
+    {}
+  \patchcmd\@LTRfootnotetext
+    {#1}
+    {\toggletrue{blx@footnote}#1}
+    {\togglefalse{blx@tempa}}
+    {}
+  \patchcmd\@RTLfootnotetext
+    {#1}
+    {\toggletrue{blx@footnote}#1}
+    {\togglefalse{blx@tempa}}
+    {}}
+\catcode`\#=6
+
 \AtEndPreamble{%
   \def\do#1{%
     \@ifpackageloaded{#1}
@@ -195,16 +214,8 @@
        {\togglefalse{blx@tempa}}
        {}}
     {}%
-  \@ifpackageloaded{bidi}{%   bidi
-    \def\do#1{
-      \pretocmd#1
-        {\toggletrue{blx@footnote}}
-        {\togglefalse{blx@tempa}}
-        {}}%
-    \docsvlist{%
-      \@footnotetext,
-      \@LTRfootnotetext,
-      \@RTLfootnotetext}}%
+  \@ifpackageloaded{bidi}%    bidi
+    {\blx@patchbidifootnotes}
     {}%
   \@ifclassloaded{memoir}
     {\def\do#1{%

[moewew]

Thank you for the patch.

Maybe it is safer to wrap the \catcode`\#=12 into \begingroup...\endgroup that saves us the reset (\catcode`\#=6). Precedence for that is in biblatex.sty already.

[dcpurton]

I thought of that. But then you need to use \global\togglefalse{blx@tempa} and I wasn't certain if that would have undesired side effects. It's probably safe though. I'll check.

[dcpurton]

Actually... Of course it won't... Brain fail. I'll use the \begingroup