[OS X TeX] bibtex syntax defintion

[Herbert Schulz]

On Aug 17, 2005, at 5:22 PM, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 17 août 05 à 22:17, Michael McCracken a écrit :
>
>
>> I did have some troubles getting the resulting tex file to typeset  
>> with my current version of TeX, possibly because it is 20 years  
>> old, so perhaps someone with more time or experience could help  
>> solve that.
>>
>
> The problem looks odd. bibtex.tex calls pdfwebmac.tex (with pdfTeX)  
> or ordwebmac.tex (otherwise), which define both several control  
> sequences starting with \E:
>
> \def\E{\cdot10^} % exponent in floating point constant
> \def\ET{ and~} % conjunction between two section numbers
> \def\ETs{, and~} % conjunction between the last two of several  
> section numbers
>
> Then, bibtex.tex uses \ETs:
>
> 280, 281, 284, 293, 294, 295, 310, 311, 313, 321, 356, 368, 373 
> \ETs456.
>
> But it seems with current TeX this control sequence can't be read:  
> TeX stops after reading \E, replaces \E by its definition \cdot^10,  
> and, realizing it's not in math mode, returns an error:
>
> ! Missing $ inserted.
> <inserted text>
>                 $
> <to be read again>
>                    \cdot
> \E->\cdot
>           10^
> <argument> ... 310, 311, 313, 321, 356, 368, 373\E
>                                                   Ts456
> \note ...ndent 2em\baselineskip 10pt\eightrm #1~#2
>                                                   .\par }
> l.179 ...310, 311, 313, 321, 356, 368, 373\ETs456.
>
> What can have changed in modern TeX, that makes \ETs an invalid  
> control sequence?
>
> Bruno Voisin
>
>

Howdy,

Only a wild guess... is there anything that is changing the catcode  
of T so it isn't a normal character? That would terminate the command  
after the \E. Sounds rather weird.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


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