Feature Request: add special treatment for commands like "\newcount"

[muzimuzhi]

As far as I guess, since cwl file only supports options inside braces ({}, [], etc), commands that normally used without braces around their arguments and defines (mostly one of) their arguments as new macros are specially treated in latexdocument.cpp. For example,

\def\newcmd<parameter text>{<def>} % and \edef, \gdef, \xdef
\newcount\mycount

However, there are other command that share the same syntax with \newcount but have not been specially treated. This will cause wrong highlight effect in txs, see The full list of these \newcount-like commands is

\newdimen
\newskip
\newmuskip
\newbox
\newtoks
\newread
\newwrite
\newlanguage
\newfam
\newinsert

PS: These macros, plus \newcount, were originally introduced in plain tex format, and were then adopted by latex2e format. Hence one can see the occurrences of them both in documents about tex with plain tex (like texdoc texbytopic, Chap. 31) and in documents about latex2e (like texdoc source2e, Sec. b.9).

The related source lines could be https://github.com/texstudio-org/texstudio/blob/a7fd0a3dc064f685d68b8a6792bb825f4669a085/src/latexdocument.cpp#L838-L852

[sunderme]

I have implemented two commands in the cwl, see commit 99cafd4f0df6c49319cdc13b9891fc7672b8cdff

You can do the rest ...

[muzimuzhi]

The added lines to cwl file only recognize usages with braces like

\newbox{\somebox} % here txs recognizes \somebox as a new cmd
...
\somebox % here txs highlights \somebox as normal cmd

But what I want, and what is usually used in latex package source files is the form without braces:

\newbox\someBox % here txs highlights both \someBox as "unrecognized command"
...
\someBox

That is to say, commit https://github.com/texstudio-org/texstudio/commit/99cafd4f0df6c49319cdc13b9891fc7672b8cdff does not solve the question shown in the screenshot I have posted:

PS: Yes, the with-brace form (\newbox{\someBox}) is a valid form, but the no-brace form is the form most latex package writers use. For example, the latex2e kernel consistently uses the no-brace form. This means, txs will provides wrong highlight when openning package source files.

---

The following may provide a clearer description about my original question (or request)

• Currently, if one can denote a no-brace and new-cmd cwl line for \newbox to support usages like \newbox\someBox where \someBox will be recognized as new defined command?
• If it supports, how can one write cwl lines.
• If it doesn't support, does there exist an easy way to support/implement?

And following is my trial and guess when I opened this isse

• After some test (for example, writing \newbox%<cmd%>#d), I guessed that it doesn't support. And I directly used my guess in the original post.
• Meanwhile, when reading the source code, I found that txs supports \newcount\someCount by specially handling \newcount. (See the linked code lines in original post.) Hence I guess if we can support more \newXXX things by changing the bool expression to something like

  if (cmd == "\\newcount" || cmd == "\\newbox" || ...)

[sunderme]

here it works fine

[sunderme]

have you placed a tex.cwl in your .config/texstudio/completion/user ?

[muzimuzhi]

Your commit does meet my original request. I am so sorry.

Before today, I used a cwl-test.cwl file containing a line \newbox{cmd}#dS and a test tex file

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{cwl-test}
\newbox\xxx
\newcount\zzz
\begin{document}
\xxx
\zzz
\end{document}

Then the problem persists when I directly open txs with the tex file. But when I delete and then re-type in the line \newbox\xxx in tex file, it works.

[muzimuzhi]

I will provide the rest cwl lines.

[muzimuzhi]

Commit https://github.com/texstudio-org/texstudio/commit/d538bab7c91e9b845e0be698d1aac49b7e9b2d77 is also related to (or resulted from) this issue.