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From: carllee@math.rutgers.edu (Carl Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.text,ru.qa.tex
Subject: Re: Strange Event in LaTeX
Message-ID: <Feb.12.14.02.49.1990.21622@math.rutgers.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 90 19:02:51 GMT
References: <Feb.12.13.07.48.1990.20578@math.rutgers.edu->
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 48



->I must be doing something wrong, but I do not understand what.  Maybe
->someone out there can solve this puzzle.
->
->I have the following file:
->
->----------------------------------------
->
->\documentstyle{article}
->\begin{document}
->
->\long\def\text#1{\long\def\textx{#1}}
->\long\def\print{\if\empty\textx\else{Text: \textx}\fi}
->
->\text{Hello}
->\print
->
->\text{I: Hello}
->\print
->
->\text{II: Hello}
->\print
->
->\end{document}
->
->----------------------------------------
->
->When I process it with LaTeX, the output is:
->
->----------------------------------------
->
->Text: Hello
->
->Text: I: Hello
->
->:Hello
->
->----------------------------------------
->
->In other words, the presence of "II" causes the command "print" to
->malfunction.  Does this happen to you?  What is going on? 

Addendum:  It seems that when "II" is replaced with any pair of
identical characters, this behavior results.

Carl Lee
carllee@dimacs.rutgers.edu