Re: Characters allowed in macro names

[Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl>]

On 4/22/2018 5:23 PM, N. Raghavendra wrote:
> I was wondering if it is alright to use underscores in the names of
> macros, e.g, as in the following file.  It looks like \startsetups, and
> \def accept names with hyphens, underscores, and numerals, but
> \starttexdefinition doesn't tolerate any of them.
> 
> 1. In general, what characters are allowed in macro names?  Are Unicode
>     characters admissible?

letters are (and _ is not a letter, unless we're in unprotected mode)

> 2. Apart from the fact that one can use whitespace freely in
>     \starttexdefinition, is there any reason to prefer it over \def?

depends ... sometimes more readble ... spaces are ignores ... you can 
use named parameters

> Thanks,
> Raghu.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> \starttext
> 
> \startsetups [hello-world_1]
>    Hello, world 1!
> \stopsetups
> 
> \setups [hello-world_1]
> 
> \def\hello-world_2{Hello, world 2!}
> 
> \hello-world_2
> 
> \starttexdefinition helloWorld
>    Hello, world!
> \stoptexdefinition
> 
> \helloWorld
> 
> %% Doesn't work
> %% \starttexdefinition fooBar1
> %%   Foo, bar 1!
> %% \stoptexdefinition
> %%
> %% \fooBar1
> 
> %% Doesn't work
> %% \starttexdefinition foo_bar
> %%   Foo, bar!
> %% \stoptexdefinition
> %%
> %% \foo_bar
> 
> %% Doesn't work
> %% \starttexdefinition foo-bar
> %%   Foo, bar!
> %% \stoptexdefinition
> %%
> %% \foo-bar
> 
> \stoptext
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> N. Raghavendra <raghu@hri.res.in>, http://www.retrotexts.net/
> Harish-Chandra Research Institute, http://www.hri.res.in/
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