How to format a LaTeX string in python?

Question

I'm writing an application, part of whose functionality is to generate LaTeX CVs, so I find myself in a situation where I have strings like

\begin{document}
\title{Papers by AUTHOR}
\author{}
\date{}
\maketitle
\begin{enumerate}

%%   LIST OF PAPERS
%%   Please comment out anything between here and the
%%   first \item
%%   Please send any updates or corrections to the list to
%%   XXXEMAIL???XXX

%\usepackage[pdftex, ...

which I would like to populate with dynamic information, e.g. an email address. Due to the format of LaTeX itself, .format with the {email} syntax won't work, and neither will using a dictionary with the %(email)s syntax. Edit: in particular, strings like "\begin{document}" (a command in LaTeX) should be left literally as they are, without replacement from .format, and strings like "%%" (a comment in LaTeX) should also be left, without replacement from a populating dictionary. What's a reasonable way to do this?

Operating here under the assumption that I don't really want to have to type %% for % everywhere... — Valkyrie Savage
– Valkyrie Savage, Commented Jul 12, 2011 at 23:23
What version of Python are you using? str.format() is new to 2.6 — Usagi
– Usagi, Commented Jul 12, 2011 at 23:34
Have you ever finished this library, because I just created something like it: github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX — JelteF
– JelteF, Commented Jan 18, 2014 at 13:48
Cool! I did finish working on this project, the source for which you can find at invenio-software.org (still developed by others, not by me). I didn't split out the LaTeX piece into anything nice, so it's a good thing someone did. :) — Valkyrie Savage
– Valkyrie Savage, Commented Jan 18, 2014 at 21:01

Santa · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-12 23:31:46Z

20

Why won't this work?

>>> output = r'\author{{email}}'.format(email='[email protected]')
>>> print output
\author{email}

edit: Use double curly braces to "escape" literal curly braces that only LaTeX understands:

>>> output = r'\begin{{document}} ... \author{{{email}}}'.format(
... email='[email protected]')
>>> print output
\begin{document} ... \author{[email protected]}

edited Jul 12, 2011 at 23:31

answered Jul 12, 2011 at 23:01

Santa

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4 Comments

Valkyrie Savage Over a year ago

out = r''' ...: \begin{document} ...: {{email}}'''.format(email='[email protected]') --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KeyError Traceback (most recent call last) /home/valkyrie/projects/invenio/modules/websearch/lib/<ipython console> in <module>() KeyError: 'document'

Valkyrie Savage Over a year ago

the LaTeX contains things with curly braces that should be kept unmodified (including the curly braces themselves).

Santa Over a year ago

So use double-curly braces for those (essentially escaping them.

Valkyrie Savage Over a year ago

It's sort of a shame that the only outs are doubling on curlies or percents, but as long as it works, I guess it's all good. :)

JBernardo · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-12 23:39:16Z

6

You may not use the new format syntax to avoid escaping the { and }.

That should work:

>>> a = r'''
\title{%(title)s}
\author{%(author)s}
\begin{document}'''

>>> b = a % {'title': 'My Title', 'author': 'Me, Of course'}
>>> print(b)

\title{My Title}
\author{Me, Of course}
\begin{document}

You should use raw strings r'something' to avoid escaping \ as \\.

PS: You should take a look on txt2tags, a Python script to convert t2t formatted text into html, latex, markdown etc. Check the source code to see how these conversions are done.

answered Jul 12, 2011 at 23:39

JBernardo

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2 Comments

Valkyrie Savage Over a year ago

It complains about LaTeX's comments, e.g. I have a line which says "%\usepackage...." that causes the dictionary formatter to complain. I will look into txt2tags, though, thank you!

JBernardo Over a year ago

You can add comments after formatting... Or escape the % with \%.

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