[Tex/LaTex] Undefined control sequence in input file (with \citeauthor and \citeyear)

input

I have a main.tex file which is including other tex files in order to have a better overview over my file. Here is how the main.tex looks like:

 \documentclass[a4paper,10pt, twoside]{book}
 \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
 \usepackage{graphicx}
 \usepackage[english]{babel}

 \date{}
 \graphicspath{{../figures/}}


 \newcommand\Mycite[1]{%
 (\citeauthor{#1},~\citeyear{#1})}

 \begin{document}
 \nocite{*}

 \input{second_latex_file}
 \bibliographystyle{plain} 
 \bibliography{literature}
 \end{document}

and in the second_latex_file.tex I am trying to use the defined command Mycite, but I am still getting the error "undefined control sequence Mycite..
The file second_latex_file.tex has no preambles, it just starts with a text! So like:

 \chapter{Second chapter}
 ......some text here
.... \Mycite{something}

I tried to copy the command into this file, but of course then I get the error message "command already defined". Does someone know what I have to do in this case :S?

Best Answer

you need \usepackage{natbib} for \citeauthor and \citeyear to work

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt, twoside]{book}
 \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
 \usepackage{graphicx}
 \usepackage[english]{babel}
 \usepackage{natbib}

 \date{}
 \graphicspath{{../figures/}}


 \newcommand{\Mycite}[1]{%
 (\citeauthor{#1},~\citeyear{#1})}

 \begin{document}
 \nocite{*}

 \Mycite{something}
 \end{document}

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[Tex/LaTex] Input file folder

The following is written to accord to Mac OS Xs' FHS implementation. This is principally valid for any UNIX-like OS. Pdflatex allows you to specify complete paths:

\input{/Users/user_name/some/path}

Under Unix-Like systems you may even use shell(bash) variables in you paths:

\input{$HOME/some/path}

or common abbreviations

\intput{\string~/some/path}

(note: using \string here to tell latex to pass the character to shell instead of taking the "meaning")

Of course you may also specify relative paths. This means of course you need to know what your active path is. For pdflatex this is most commonly the path (or directory) were yout main document lies (which is given pdflatex as an argument).

\input{some_file}

This will tell pdflatex to use some_file which is located in the active dir. (If not an error will be raised.)

\input{./some_file}

Will do exactly the same, while

\input{../some_file}

will tell pdflatex to use some_file which lies in the parent folder (one level above.)

So one might ask why? Well under common OSs like UNIX or Windows the dot representations are in charge, so that . represents the current/active folder and .. the parent. Therefore ../../ will represent a folder two levels above (the parent of the parent). This is possible, since the directory tree only knows one parent a a certain level. So 'going up' is all the same on any level.

[Tex/LaTex] LyX undefined control sequence \input

The command \input{} should work in a new LyX file without user preamble as well as with your preample. Try this in the body of the document:

Ctrl+L (This make an ERT - evil red text - box)
Write inside the ERT box \input{/your/path/here/file} (you can omit the .tex extension) or simply \input{file} when the children document is in the same directory that the main document.

You can obtain the same result with the menu in Insert > File > Children document (or some like that, I cannot check the exact English labels). The result is the same, the only difference is that instead LaTeX code that is just ignored by LyX, you will see a clickable gray box that can be changed trough a Lyx window:

MWE

If you have an "undefined control sequence" error it should be due to some offending command in the children document. Note that file.tex must be only a chunk of the document body, not a complete LaTeX document. First check that \input{} work fine with some plain tex (a "Hello, Word!" is enough) or a simple table like this:

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|}
\hline
    11 & 12 & 13\\
    21 & 22 & 23\\
    31 & 32 & 33\\
\hline
\end{tabular}

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] Input file folder

[Tex/LaTex] LyX undefined control sequence \input

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