🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug12.163437.12527@news.cs.indiana.edu>, edrbtsn@bigeye.cs.indiana.edu (Ed Robertson) writes...
>The primitive command \edef expands its second arguement before
>assigning it (as a macro definition) to its first arguement.
>However, primitive commands inside the second arguement are not
>executed.
> 
>What I want is a \fulledef, so that
>	\fulledef\temp{\libmac}
>fully evaluates \libmac before assigning it to \temp.  There are obvious
>problems specifying how far to evaluate, so such a \fulledef would
>need to be used with care.

Yes there are obvious problems.  You can make TeX so several levels of
evaluation:

o No evaluation or expansion
o Single expansion to get top-level definitions (can only be applied easily
  to single commands, not to arbitrary token lists)
o Complete expansion without processing of unexpandable tokens.  Since
  assignments are unexpandable they are not processed.
o Complete evaluation of tokens to produce a `list'.  If you want anything
  more than expansion, this is the only option.  Here is how to do it:

Instead of \fulldef\temp{\libmac}, use
\setbox\temp\hbox{\libmac}  % or \vbox

And to use \temp, use \unhbox\temp or \unvbox\temp.

If that isn't what you need, you will probably have to reevaluate your needs.

Donald Arseneau             asnd@reg.triumf.ca