[comp.text.tex] Announcing LaCheck, a consistency checker for LaTeX documents

krab@iesd.auc.dk (Kresten Krab Thorup) (05/29/91)

I've made up a little program, which I call LaCheck. It can check
LaTeX documents for banale errors like mismatched grouping, and
missing control spaces after abbrevations.  The program is still under
evaluation, so this first release should be thought of as a
alpha-alpha version.  

To compile it, you must have flex.  How to do it is described in the
readme file.

You may pick it up from [iesd.auc.dk:pub/latex/lacheck-1.6.shar]
via anonymous ftp.

Happy LaTeX'in!

/Kresten

Here's the man page:



LaCheck(1)               USER COMMANDS                 LaCheck(1)



NAME
     lacheck - A consistency checker for LaTeX documents.

SYNOPSIS
     lacheck filename [ .tex ]

DESCRIPTION
     lacheck is a general purpose consistency checker  for  LaTeX
     documents.   It  reads a LaTeX document and displays warning
     messages, if it finds bad sequences.  It  should  be  noted,
     that the badness is very subjective.

     The things checked are:

     Mismatched groups (braces), environments and math mode  del-
     imiters.   When  a  mismatch is found, line numbers for both
     start and end of the mismatch is given. The  error  messages
     comes in pairs, one for the end match and one for the begin-
     ning, marked with `<-' and `->' respectively.

     Bad spacing. This is: missing a `\ ' after an  abbreviation,
     missing  an  `\@'  before  a punctuation mark in a paragraph
     that is ended by an capital letter, double spaces like ` ~',
     bad  usage of ellipsis (like using ... instead of \ldots, or
     using \ldots where \cdots should be used)

     lacheck will read files  that  are  input  using  \input  or
     \include.   Files  with  suffix  `.sty' are omitted, as they
     probably will cause errors.

     lacheck may be invoked from within Emacs(1) using compile:

     To run: M-x compile <ret> , and then C-x ` to parse the mes-
     sages


OUTPUT
     The output is UNIX-error  like,  and  may  be  parsed  using
     Emacs(1) compile mode. Here is a sample:

     lacheck compiler
     "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 34: missing `\ ' after "etc."
     "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 179: double space at " ~"
     "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 186: <- unmatched "}"
     "/usr/mef/compiler.tex", line 181: -> unmatched "$$"

     A control space `\ ' should  be  inserted  at  line  34,  to
     prevent  an  end-of-sentence  space.  Also, at line 179, the
     first space of the sequence " ~" should probably be deleted.
     The  last  two lines is an example, where the user mistyped,
     and probably inserted an extra "}" somewhere.

DIAGNOSTICS
     Some special cases should be explained.  In  cases  where  a
     sentence  ends  with  something  that  lacheck  thinks is an
     abbreviation an missing `\ ' error may also  occur,  if  the
     following sentence begins with a capital letter.

     A mismatch error may cause more to follow, due to the chosen
     algorithm.  In  such  cases just correct the first error and
     run lacheck again

     Braces, environments and math mode must be balanced within a
     file.

SEE ALSO
     tex(1), Emacs(1), latex(1)

BUGS
     Lots... Ideas for improvements and bug reports are very wel-
     come. Such should be directed to the author.

AUTHOR
     Kresten Krab Thorup,  Email <krab@iesd.auc.dk>




Sun Release 4.1     Last change: May 23, 1991                   1

anita@brahms.udel.edu (Anita Marie Hoover) (05/29/91)

In article <KRAB.91May29103842@galilei.iesd.auc.dk> krab@iesd.auc.dk (Kresten Krab Thorup) writes:
=>I've made up a little program, which I call LaCheck. It can check
=>LaTeX documents for banale errors like mismatched grouping, and
=>missing control spaces after abbrevations.  The program is still under
=>evaluation, so this first release should be thought of as a
=>alpha-alpha version.  
=>
=>To compile it, you must have flex.  How to do it is described in the
=>readme file.
=>
=>You may pick it up from [iesd.auc.dk:pub/latex/lacheck-1.6.shar]
=>via anonymous ftp.

                                       ^
                                       | not a directory

   I found it in [iesd.auc.dk:latex/lacheck-1.6.shar] 

=> [stuff deleted]