[comp.text.tex] \\uppercase and \\i

drstrip@intvax.UUCP (David R. Strip) (12/10/90)

I am trying to title a chapter N\^{\i}mes in book
style. The title prints fine on the first page of the
chapter, but when used as a header on righthand pages
I have a problem when the chapter command applies
uppercase to the string. I have defined the uppercase
of \i to be I 
    \uccode'020=`I
but \uppercase does not expand its argument, and I'm at
a loss as what to do.

I can tell you some things that don't work. For example,
substituting \char'020 for \i (predictably ?) doesn't work.
Also, \expandafter\uppercase{N\^{\i}mes} is no better, nor
is using N\^\i mes in place of N\^{\i}mes any better.

Advice would be welcomed. Explanation would be nice, but
it obviously not as necessary.
David Strip
drstrip@cs.sandia.gov

eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout) (12/11/90)

drstrip@intvax.UUCP (David R. Strip) writes:

>I am trying to title a chapter N\^{\i}mes in book
>style. The title prints fine on the first page of the
>chapter, but when used as a header on righthand pages
>I have a problem when the chapter command applies
>uppercase to the string. I have defined the uppercase
>of \i to be I 
>    \uccode'020=`I
>but \uppercase does not expand its argument, and I'm at
>a loss as what to do.

Nice problem. It took me a while to figure this one out.

The \uccode'020=`I is correct. The problem is that
TeX will only uppercase character octal-20 if it really sees
that character. Here's how:
     N\^\char`^^Pmes
By the ^^ substitution mechanism ^^P (which is like Control-P,
which gives octal 20) becomes the dotless i character,
and this can be uppercased without any problem.
Accenting still works, because accents can also be placed over
\char-denoted characters.

Victor.