best way to escape dollar sign?

[404pnf]

I am typesetting articles on pricing and economy. There are dollar signs with normal text. If I don't escape them, python would complain about

  UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\ufb00'

or something like that, different u'\' characters. It's really misleading! I thought there were some characters that python can't handle or the file is encoded with BOM.

Meanwhile the latex tmp.log stops after \usepackage then \end{article}, nothing within

Until by some chance I got to see a real latex tmp log with:

  ! Missing $ inserted.
 <inserted text> 
              $

I knew it's something within equation or some missing $ . Of course, there are dollar signs all over the article.

Here is a sample:

  ## DEFINITION

  $ \displaystyle Value_a - Price_a \geq Value_b - Price_b $

  Rearranging gives:

  $ \displaystyle Price_a \leq (Value_a - Value_b) + Price_a Price_b \leq Differentiation Value_b + Price_b $

  - This suggests that the EVC of a server with the software is  $6,000 + $6,800 = $12,800. 

  - item 2 is  $6,000 + $6,800 = $12,800. 

Currently my way of dealing with this is to manually escape each $dollars. Because % $6,000 + $6,800 = $12,800. % inline won't work

My question is what's the best the to deal with it?

Thanks in advance!

[404pnf]

escape the dollar sign with \$ aviods it to be processed by latex by the html file looks strange

  <li>This suggests that the EVC of a server with the software is \$6,000 + \$6,800 = \$12,800. </li>

[justinvh]

You're welcome to change the script's RE to be something like [ ] or ( ), etc.

[404pnf]

Using \[ \] is a possible solution but it brings other difficulties. Considering the following markown

 \[fd\]

  \(fasdf\)

render it, markdown testmarkdown.md, we get

[fd]

(fasdf)

Markdown strips the backslash. It's the correct behavior. Since any markdown extension runs after markdown itself, we need some way to ask markdown engine not to touch \[ \].

Other markdown with latex solutions do use \[ \] and ask the writer to put maths in code block or inline codeget around the above-metioned trouble.

E.g

    inline math ` \[ some math \]`

             \[use indent to 
               adfa \]

This is not good sematic. And I tried those approaches, not as natrual as your current solution.

I propose a minor code change. Considering the facts

1. markdown runs first, markdown-latex runs after markdown
2. markdown won't strip \ from \$ and \%

Ask markdown-latex to subsitute any \$ and \% outside math mode to $ and %. Must be outside math mode because in math mode one need to escape $ and % to get themselves,

   $ E_d = {\text{\% change in quantity demanded} \over \text{\% change in price} } = $

How about ask the writer upfront to escape '%' and $ in their documents. This will add some effort but it worthes it, because 1) it's stated beforhand rahter than authors go through what I had been through 2) people are used to escape special characters, and there are only two reserved words here. 3) a unified rule is easier for people to cooprate and exchange document

[justinvh]

Markdown strips the backslash. It's the correct behavior. Since any markdown extension runs after markdown itself, we need some way to ask markdown engine not to touch [ ].

This isn't true. The plugin is both a preprocessor and postprocessor. I changed the regular expression to search for [ ] and it worked fine. I output the preprocess result and the postprocess:

Regular expression for a small TeX mode:

TEX_MODE = re.compile(r'(?=(?<!\\)\\\[).(.+?)(?<!\\)\\\]', re.MULTILINE | re.DOTALL) 

Running a small test:

⇝ markdown_py -x latex tests/simple.markdown
This is a simple test: \[y = mx + b\]. This should all be inlined.
<style>img.latex-inline { vertical-align: middle; }</style>
<p>This is a simple test: <img class='latex-inline math-false' alt='ymxb' id='ymxb'     src='data:image/png;base64,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'>. This should all be inlined.</p>%

[justinvh]

Anyhow, the best solution, as you stated, is to just escape the % and $ if you use them in a document.

[404pnf]

Would you implement this in your code?