Re: "Semi-verbatim" - preserve whitespace - don't escape characters

[Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

> 2007/12/7, dexterclarke@safe-mail.net <dexterclarke@safe-mail.net>:
>> Hi.
>>
>> I'm working on a document processor that has multiple backends
>> for different output formats (XHTML, nroff, plain text, ConTeXt).
>>
>> The processor uses s-expression syntax with commands such as:
>>
>>   (para "this is a paragraph")
>>
>> The various backends then convert this statement in their own
>> way (using <p></p> tags in XHTML, for example).
>>
>> There is one command that allows rendering of external files
>> based on whatever backend is selected:
>>
>>   (render "file")
>>
>> The XHTML backend includes "file", escaping all 'illegal' characters
>> such as <, >, & etc. The ConTeXt backend reads the file and also
>> escapes characters, placing their TeX equivalent in the output -
>> $\}$, $\backslash$ etc. Both backends place the contents of "file"
>> directly in the output, they don't, for example, use the <object>
>> tags in XHTML, or any ConTeXt file inclusion directives. This is
>> desirable for many reasons that are out of scope for this post...
>>
>> The problem I am having is that one may do this:
>>
>>   (para-verbatim (render "file"))
>>
>> The para-verbatim tag is meant to preserve whitespace in the output.
>>
>> For example, this becomes:
>>
>>   <pre>contents of file</pre>
>>
>> in the XHTML output. Unfortunately, I've hit a wall when it comes
>> to the ConTeXt equivalent: The ConTeXt backend reads
>> in "file" and prints it to the output, escaping all reserved TeX
>> characters, as mentioned earlier, but unfortunately there doesn't
>> seem to be the equivalent of:
>>
>>   \preservewhitespace
>>   contents of file
>>   \stoppreservingwhitespace
>>
>> "\starttyping" is too heavy handed in that it also escapes characters
>> rather than just preserving whitespace (they've already been escaped
>> by my document processor, as mentioned earlier). What I need is a
>> directive that says "preserve whitespace" but does not escape reserved
>> TeX characters.
>>
>> Does any such thing exist in ConTeXt? Unfortunately, I'm inexperienced
>> with TeX so I don't know how feasible this is.

\setuplines[space=yes]

followed by

> \startlines
> verbatin text
> \stoplines

Note that everything between start-stop lines is normal tex code.

Aditya
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