ltxcmds
Provides essential LaTeX kernel utility commands in a format-independent way, making core functionality accessible across different TeX environments.
Overview
A fundamental utility package that bridges different TeX formats by extracting and standardizing important LaTeX kernel commands. It serves as a compatibility layer that ensures consistent behavior of basic operations across various TeX-based systems.
- Makes core LaTeX functionality available to plain TeX and other formats
- Helps package developers create more portable and maintainable code
- Provides a standardized interface for common operations
- Particularly useful when writing packages that need to work across different TeX formats or when maintaining compatibility between traditional LaTeX and modern implementations
Getting Started
To use ltxcmds, include it in your document preamble:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ltxcmds}
This package is primarily intended for package authors. The main functionality is to provide LaTeX kernel commands in a separate namespace that can be used in other formats like plain TeX.
Examples
Using ltxcmds to access LaTeX kernel commands in a format-independent way.
% Demonstrate using kernel commands through ltxcmds
\noindent Original LaTeX kernel command: \verb|\@ifnextchar|\\
Accessed via ltxcmds: \verb|\ltx@ifnextchar|
\bigskip
\noindent Testing \verb|\ltx@ifstar| to create a custom starred command:
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\mycommand}{%
\@ifstar{\@mycommandstar}{\@mycommandnostar}%
}
\newcommand{\@mycommandstar}[1]{Starred version with argument: \textbf{#1}}
\newcommand{\@mycommandnostar}[1]{Regular version with argument: \textit{#1}}
\makeatother
\noindent\mycommand{Hello World} % Regular version
\noindent\mycommand*{Hello World} % Starred version