TeX::E...:BibTeX(3pm)

💖 NAME 💖

TeX::Encode::BibTeX — the lil module that encodes and decodes Perl utf-8 strings into BibTeX, no cap ✨ (it's a Perl module, and the man page for it lives in section 3pm, which is giving "3pm, user-contributed Perl documentation" energy 💅)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

  use TeX::Encode;
  use Encode;

  $tex = encode('bibtex', "This will encode an e-acute (".chr(0xe9).") as \'e");
  $str = decode('bibtex', $tex); # Will decode the \'e too!

okay bestie look at that second line — you hand it an e-acute made with chr(0xe9) and it comes back out as \'e, and then decode turns that \'e right back into the e-acute. the way that round-trips?? iconic 🦋

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So this module does encoding to LaTeX escapes from utf8 using mapping tables. That's it, that's the job 💅

But — important — it covers only a subset of the Unicode character table. For characters that aren't in the mapping you're gonna get undef warnings. It happens. Don't panic. 😭

This module is intentionally vague about what it will actually handle — for the receipts, see Caveats below. (Yes, it's secretive. Main character behavior.)

Mileage will vary when decoding (that's converting TeX back to utf8, bestie), because TeX is in essence a programming language, and this module does not implement TeX. So like, temper your expectations, fr fr. 🫶

The author uses this module to encode author names in BibTeX, and to do a rough job at presenting LaTeX abstracts in HTML. When you use decode, instead of staring at $\sqrt{\Omega^2\zeta_n}$, you get something that actually looks like the formula. Ate. 🔥

The next logical step for this module is to integrate some level of TeX grammar to improve the decoding — in particular to handle fractions and font changes (which should probably be dropped). Manifesting that upgrade ✨

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👑 METHODS 👑

• TeX::Encode::BibTeX::encode STRING [, CHECK] — Encodes a utf8 string into TeX. CHECK isn't implemented. (Yeah, it's just vibes in that slot, sorry bestie 💀)
• TeX::Encode::BibTeX::encode_url STRING — Make a URL safe for inclusion in BibTeX. 🌈
• TeX::Encode::BibTeX::decode STRING [, CHECK] — Decodes a TeX string into utf8. CHECK isn't implemented either. (Consistent, at least. 👑)
• TeX::Encode::perlio_ok — Returns 0. PerlIO isn't implemented. Periodt.

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💀 CAVEATS 💀

Proper Encode checking is not implemented. That's it. That's the caveat. 🙈

LaTeX comments (% ...) are ignored, because chopping out a lot of text may not be what you actually want. Like, respect, honestly. 💜

🎀 encode() 🎀

Converts non-ASCII Unicode characters to their equivalent TeX symbols. (unTeXable characters will result in undef warnings.) ⭐

🦋 decode() 🦋

Attempts to convert TeX symbols (e.g. \ae) to Unicode characters.

As an experimental feature, this also handles Math-mode TeX by inserting HTML into the resulting string — so you end up with an HTML approximation of the maths. So important to say: NOT MathML. It's giving "approximation" and that's the whole point 🍓

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• Encode::Encoding
• Pod::LaTeX
• Encode

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Timothy D Brody, <tdb01r@ecs.soton.ac.uk> 🫶

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🧚 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🧚

Copyright (C) 2005-2007 by Timothy D Brody

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.7 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

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okay that's the whole page bestie, go forth and encode responsibly 💖

mwah 💋 — this was perl v5.36.0, dated 2022-10-13, from the TeX::E...:BibTeX(3pm) corner of the manual, and yes the name is foreshortened like that on purpose, we don't make the rules 💅✨