[tex-k] HyperTeX tags

[Heiko Oberdiek]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2006 at 01:12:44PM -0600, Karl Berry wrote:

>     Original author may have expected a user to
>     escape himself like "\string\(\string\134" for "(\".
> 
> Indeed, we had this same discussion last year in regards to pdftex,
> which also requires the user to do escaping.  The conclusion was, as far
> as I could gather, was that it was too late to fix it, since any
> existing packages (notably hyperref), already assume that behavior.

hyperref does not protect the name at all:

    \special{html:<a name=\hyper at quote #1\hyper at quote>}%

> So I fear it might actually cause more trouble than it solves to change
> dvips in this way :(.

Perhaps there is hope that the html syntax has prevented that
someone thought about protecting as PDF string.
Also the specials are used by other systems that are far
away from PostScript and PDF, such as DVI viewers.
Therefore I think quoting as PDF string is the task
of the program that uses the name for PDF strings, in our
case this is dvips.

Who controls the syntax of \special{html:...}? Does a
specification exist?

Using google I found only:
  http://arxiv.org/hypertex/
It contains a short explanation, but a specification I haven't seen.
* What is the specified range of characters?
* How are special characters given? For example the quotes, as
  entities? Without quoting (all between the first and last
  quotes in the special is the name)?
* ...

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek at uni-freiburg.de>
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