tas@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Tas van.Ommen) (06/19/91)
Maybe this is a novice question but I can't find these control sequences in either Knuth or Lamport. What do the commands \makeatletter and \makeatother do? Tas van Ommen email: tas@physvax.phys.utas.edu.au
toriver@lise.unit.no (Tor Iver Wilhelmsen) (06/19/91)
In article <tas.677284397@tasman> tas@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Tas van.Ommen) writes:
Maybe this is a novice question but I can't find these control sequences
in either Knuth or Lamport. What do the commands \makeatletter and
\makeatother do?
Tas van Ommen email: tas@physvax.phys.utas.edu.au
* I think they are macros defined as such:
\def\makeatother{\catcode'\@=12} % @ becomes an 'other' type
%character
\def\makeatletter{\catcode'\@=11} % @ becomes a letter, can then
% be used in macro names
The reason to do this is to have "hidden" names, plain TeX uses this a
lot (source: Schwartz: Introduction to TeX, p. 190)
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