[Tex/LaTex] “Runaway argument?” just in the \input file

conditionalsetoolboxverbatim

Update: Upon @egreg suggestion, the case shown below is the core of the problem and has nothing to do with include/input statements. I have a verbatim within toggle statements, which fails. A minimal code for that is

\documentclass[openany]{book}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\newtoggle{tog1}
\toggletrue{tog1}

\begin{document}
    \iftoggle{tog1} {
         \begin{verbatim}
             Hello World!
         \end{verbatim}
    } {
        \textit{Hello World}
    }
\end{document}

TL;DR I have toggle cases within which I have a verbatim and this leads to

"Runaway argument" Content of verbatim ! File ended while scanning use of \@xverbatim.

I have a peculiar case. I have a latex project with the below directory structure

[project_home]
    - main.tex
    - [tex]
        - [folder_1]
            - chapter_1.tex
            - chapter_1_sec_1.tex
        - [folder_2]
            - chapter_2.tex
            - chapter_2_sec_1.tex
    - [img]
        <image files>

The main.tex file contains include statements to include files from the tex folders (they pertain to the individual chapters).

main.tex

\documentclass{book}
\newtoggle{tog1}
\toggletrue{tog1}
..
\begin{document}
    \include{tex/folder_1/chapter_1}
    \include{tex/folder_2/chapter_2}
    ..
\end{document}

Within each chapter, I have many sections. I am including these individual section files within the chapter.tex and some of these section files have toggle statements (etoolbox).

chapter_1.tex

\chapter{chapter 1}
    \section{section 1}
         \input{chapter_1_sec_1.tex}
         ..
    \section{section 2}
         ..

chapter_1_sec_1.tex

\iftoggle{tog1} {
    \begin{verbatim}
        % some HTML code
    \end{verbatim}
} {
    % The else part
    % No verbatim here, just plain tex text
}

Now, with the included \verbatim or \lstlisting within these toggle cases, the build fails with the above mentioned error.

Note 1: The build will not fail if I remove the toggle cases. The verbatim/lstlisting works just fine when I remove the toggle cases and just include the content within the file.

Note 2: It will work if I remove the verbatim/lstlisting sections and have the toggle cases.

I tried including the contents of the chapter_1_sec_1.tex directly in the chapter_1.tex file without the toggle cases. So, there seems to be no problem with nested include/input files.

The ONLY case when it fails is if I have verbatim within toggles. I am relatively new to latex and I am not sure if this is an obvious mistake. Could someone point out a correct way/workaround to this problem.
Also, why does this error occur?

Best Answer

verbatim content is currently being supplied as an argument to \iftoggle{<toggle>}{<true>}{<false>} - either in the <true> or the <false> clause. You can't have verbatim content as the argument of a macro as the argument being read fixes the category codes, which verbatim wants to change.

One suggestion is to use traditional TeX \ifs:

\newif\iftogA
\togAtrue% Set toggle togA to true

and then inside chapter_1_sec_1.tex

\iftogA
    \begin{verbatim}
        % some HTML code
    \end{verbatim}
\else
    % The else part
    % No verbatim here, just plain TeX text
\fi

Here's a minimal example highlighting the use:

\documentclass{article}

\newif\iftogA

\begin{document}

\togAtrue% Set toggle togA to true
\iftogA
\begin{verbatim}
Some verbatim text.
\end{verbatim}
\else
Some regular text.
\fi

\togAfalse% Set toggle togA to false
\iftogA
\begin{verbatim}
Some verbatim text.
\end{verbatim}
\else
Some regular text.
\fi

\end{document}

An issue that is not covered in the question is that of your verbatim environment indentation. Note that leading spaces are set as-is under verbatim (and listings), so it's typically advised to avoid that (as I did above).

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Comparing an argument to a string when argument is a result of a command with etoolbox

The etoolbox manual states for \ifstrequal on page 17: (emphasis mine)

Compares two strings and executes ⟨true⟩ if they are equal, and ⟨false⟩ otherwise. The strings are not expanded in the test and the comparison is category code agnostic.

So you always compare the string “\ab{}” with “a” and “b”. If you want to allow macros as input you need to expand them manual:

\newcommand{\aORb}[1]{%
        \expandafter\ifstrequal\expandafter{#1}{a}{"a" was given}{not a}, %
        \expandafter\ifstrequal\expandafter{#1}{b}{"b" was given}{not b}%
}

This expands the first token of #1 once before \ifstrequal is processed.

If you want to expand the input completely use:

\newcommand{\aORb}[1]{%
        \edef\mytemp{{#1}}%
        \expandafter\ifstrequal\mytemp{a}{"a" was given}{not a}, %
        \expandafter\ifstrequal\mytemp{b}{"b" was given}{not b}%
}

This expands the input completely using \edef and wraps it in braces, so only one \expandafter is enough.

Then you need to use \aORb{\ab} not \aORb{\ab{}}, because \ab doesn't take an argument the {} would stay and you would compare here “a{}” with “a” and “b”.

Excluding footnotes in verbatim wordcount

There are two ways to ignore the contents of specific commands such as \footnote{} for the word count in TeXcount.

The first way is to add a 'magic command' to the file being counted. This is described on page 18 of the TeXcount manual. The examples there, while mentioning ignore, may not be very clear, a simpler example is provided in Using Texcount but how do I ignore macro contents?.

The syntax of the comment is %TC:macro \macroname [options for each argument], so in this case it becomes %TC:macro \footnote [ignore]. This comment needs to be placed in all files that you count through the \wordcount{} macro, so in this case you should put the comment at the start of text.tex.

If you have multiple files then an easier alternative is the second way to set options for texcount, which is to provide an option file. This is a text file that contains all the options that you want to set. The syntax is slightly different, instead of %TC:macro this file should contain the syntax %macro. The file can be loaded with the command line flag -optionfile=filename. When you load this option file you don't need any comments in the .tex files anymore.

So for example with the following file called texcount.cfg:

%macro \footnote [ignore]

and the following macro call in your main document:

\immediate\write18{texcount -optionfile=texcount.cfg -nc -nobib -1 -sum text.tex > #1-words.sum}

the footnotes are ignored.

Note that it is not necessary to have the filename text.tex hardcoded into the \write18 call. You can use #1 to denote the first argument to the macro (which is the filename), that way you can give the file any name you want. Furthermore, the code in the question actually does not use \verbatiminput for the summary file. I corrected that in the MWE below, and removed also \usepackage{moreverb} because it is not necessary for verbatim input/output (that is handled by the verbatim package).

MWE, first version (with comment):

tcfootnotes.tex

%TC:macro \footnote [ignore]
This is a text \footnote{with footnotes}

Main file:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
% the following \usepackage statement
% is only to make the page smaller for the screenshot,
% it can be removed for the actual document
\usepackage[totalheight=8cm]{geometry}

\usepackage{verbatim}

\newcommand{\wordcount}[1]{
    \immediate\write18{texcount -nc -nobib -1 -sum #1 > #1-words.sum}
    \begin{flushright}\footnotesize \textsc{Wordcount:} \input{#1-words.sum}words.\end{flushright}
    }
\newcommand{\wordcountt}[1]{
    \immediate\write18{texcount -nobib -sum #1 > #1-words.sum}
    \verbatiminput{#1-words.sum}
    }

\begin{document}

\input{tcfootnotes}

\wordcount{tcfootnotes.tex}
\wordcountt{tcfootnotes.tex}

\end{document}

MWE, second version (with option file):

tcfootnotes.tex

This is a text \footnote{with footnotes}

texcount.cfg:

%macro \footnote [ignore]

Main document:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
% the following \usepackage statement
% is only to make the page smaller for the screenshot,
% it can be removed for the actual document
\usepackage[totalheight=8cm]{geometry}

\usepackage{verbatim}

% note the addition of -optionfile=texcount.cfg in the command below
\newcommand{\wordcount}[1]{
    \immediate\write18{texcount -optionfile=texcount.cfg -nc -nobib -1 -sum #1 > #1-words.sum}
    \begin{flushright}\footnotesize \textsc{Wordcount:} \input{#1-words.sum}words.\end{flushright}
    }
\newcommand{\wordcountt}[1]{
    \immediate\write18{texcount -nobib -sum #1 > #1-words.sum}
    \verbatiminput{#1-words.sum}
    }

\begin{document}

\input{tcfootnotes}

\wordcount{tcfootnotes.tex}
\wordcountt{tcfootnotes.tex}

\end{document}

Result (same for both versions):

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Comparing an argument to a string when argument is a result of a command with etoolbox

Excluding footnotes in verbatim wordcount

Related Question