[Tex/LaTex] siunitx: specifying custom command as input-symbol

siunitxsymbols

This is a follow up from siunitx uses math mode for symbols – workaround needed when using different fonts for math and text.

The problem has been solved thanks to David, however there is a problem remaining with tables that are generated by esttab for Stata. Esttab enters asterisks by a newly defined \sym command, i.e. \sym{*}. This is not necessary since I have redefined \sym to plain text, but esttab does not offer an option to omit the \sym command.

The problem is that siunitx does not recognise \sym as an input-symbol and the result are overfull hboxes, as the MWE below illustrates. My question is how to specify \sym{*}, \sym{**} and \sym{***} as input symbols for siunitx as I would like to avoid hacking the esttab plugin (btw, the problem is not pdfLaTeX or XeLaTeX specific).

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage[osf]{mathpazo}
\usepackage[euler-digits]{eulervm}
\overfullrule=5pt

% For Tables created by estout
\newcommand{\sym}[1]{#1} % for symbols in Table
\usepackage{siunitx}
\sisetup{ detect-mode, 
          group-digits            = false ,
          input-signs             = ,
          input-symbols           = ()[]-+* , % specifying \sym here does not work
          input-open-uncertainty  = ,
          input-close-uncertainty = ,
          table-align-text-post   = false 
        }

\def\xxx#1{%
  \bgroup\uccode`\~\expandafter`\string#1%
  \uppercase{\egroup\edef~{\noexpand\text\string#1}}%
  \mathcode\expandafter`\string#1"8000 }
\def\textsymbols{\xxx[\xxx]\xxx(\xxx)\xxx*}

\begin{document}

{\textsymbols
\begin{tabular*}{0.75\textwidth}{
    l @{\extracolsep\fill} *{2}{S[table-format=4.6]} @{}}
\toprule
\multicolumn{1}{@{}l}{\emph{Age}}  \\[0.5ex]
18--24 &   [-1360.228]*  &  -1371.941\sym{*}  \\
       &       (6.915)\sym{**} &    (-7.953)**      \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular*}}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Best Answer

\newcommand{\sym}[1]{\rlap{$#1$}} % for symbols in Table

works for that example, as the symbols are always at the right edge of the column otherwise I'd need to look at the weekend to see what siuintx does with its symbol list.

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[Tex/LaTex] Per mille symbol in SIunitx

I think this is the most recent siunitx' manual. Here the word percent appears only five times, and I cannot find permille or similar. A possible answer can be found here, that is, you can put the following declaration in the preamble

\DeclareSIUnit\permille{\text{\textperthousand}}

and then use it just as the \percent macro of siunitx.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{textcomp} % to use \textperthousand                                                     
\usepackage{siunitx}  
\DeclareSIUnit\permille{\text{\textperthousand}}

\begin{document}      
In normal text        
\SI{10}{\permille}    
is the same as        
\SI{1}{\percent}.     

Also in               
\textit{italic        
\SI{10}{\permille}    
is the same as        
\SI{1}{\percent}      
}                     
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] siunitx error: Invalid numerical input

You correctly surmised that the opening parenthesis is always treated as marking the start of the uncertainty. This is necessary for siunitx to be able to reliably parse numbers. The option table-space-text-pre does not change this; it only adds the width of its value (( in this case) to the column, the actual token (() is not treated any differently because of this.

You can still achieve your goal without redefining the uncertainty input by hiding the parentheses from the parser. This can be done by putting them inside a group (between { and }). It looks like you already tried this in >{{(}}, but the error message tells you that this group is not there any more when the siunitx parser reads the parenthesis. How can this be?

When TeX consumes the argument of a macro, it strips it of one layer of braces (if present). This means that sometimes, depending on the implementation of the macros you are using, some of the braces you type disappear before they reach the part of the machine they were meant for.

There are two ways of dealing with this.

You could add more braces. In your case, one additional layer is enough: >{{{(}}}
You can hide your braces from TeX by putting them inside a macro. Define a macro \newcommand*\foo{{(}} and use it like >{\foo}. Now, when this argument is handed through the different macros implementing the table, \foo is still unexpanded. It only gets expanded once the siunitx parser tries to make sense of its input and then it finds {(}, as desired. In general, this approach is much safer and easier than the first one since you don't have to first find out how many layers of braces you need and your code does not break when this number changes.

As to why this does not occur in older versions of siunitx I can only guess. To me, it looks like either a bug in the old versions or a new feature in the new ones. (Being able to add parts of the number before parsing using > and < is definitely a feature, I would say.)

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] Per mille symbol in SIunitx

[Tex/LaTex] siunitx error: Invalid numerical input

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