[Tex/LaTex] Latex Macros: Local Variables and Path Names

inputmacros

I initially have a group of TeX codes that looks like so:

paper.tex
assignment.tex

Where paper.tex is the main TeX and takes in the assignment.tex file and adds it in there.

The assignment.tex is the one I am concerned with and it has a snippet of code that I want to change. It looks like so:

\inputdir{sigsbee}
\multiplot{2}{img1,img2,img3,img4} %where img1-4 are within the directory sigsbee
{width=.45\textwidth}{caption1;caption2;caption3;caption4}

\inputdir{sigsbee2}
\multiplot{2}{img1,img2,img3,img4} %where img1-4 are within the directory sigsbee2
{width=.45\textwidth}{caption1;caption2;caption3;caption4}

I would like to make a third multiplot that takes images from both sigsbee and sigsbee2 and plots the images.

I was hoping to use something that would define variables based on path names that I could append to include miscellaneous directories. Something like:

\def\path[#1]{'/path/to/file/#1'}
....
\multiplot{2}{\path{sigsbee}{img1,img2,img3,img4}}

But I am unsure on the notation or approach that would be best suited for this operation.

Best Answer

Given the amount of time it has been since someone has contributed I am going to post my personal solution to this problem. And it is not actually a solution. Initially I prosed this question because I did not have access to the template file where part of the macros were defined from. The macros in question were as follows: 

\newcommand{\@path}{.}
\newcommand{\inputdir}[1]{\renewcommand{\@path}{#1}}
\providecommand{\figdir}{Fig}
\providecommand{\fig@file}[1]{\@path/|figdir/#1}

Now unfortunately this question was doomed from the point I asked, I did not really when I posed this question that there is a great deal of background information transformed that is highly dependent on the naming convention of the paths for the working directory. This is a Madagascar convention which is the software from where this question arose.

There is no possible way to answer this because if you change the \inputdir{} the next directory that it searches for is the Fig directory. Which is unfortunate. The simplest solution to this problem is to alter the constructing python script to make all the potential figures in one directory.

The more complicated solution would be to alter all the dependencies within the TeX template and the macros in order to make it more suitable for using multiple directories within the \multiplot{}{}{} environment.

Unfortunately, I don't see any foreseeable answers to this problem as the problem is ill-defined and frankly bordering on useless because the whole template is based on this naming convention for the paths. I would like to see a better solution arise, but I am not hopeful.

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