[AUCTeX-devel] the voodoo of TeX-command-pos, TeX-command-text, %`, %', etc.

[Joe Wells]

Can someone please explain to me the voodoo behind the use in the
function TeX-command-expand and the value of the variable
TeX-expand-list of the variables TeX-command-pos, TeX-command-text,
file, and pos, and the expansion directives “%`”, “%'”, “"”, “ \"” (as
well as how they interact with %s, %t, %d, %f, and %o)?

The information I have been able to find so far includes the e-mail
message at
<URL:http://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg03636.html>
and its two replies, the ChangeLog and preview/ChangeLog entries of
2006-10-10, the definitions of TeX-command-expand and TeX-expand-list,
and the example uses in TeX-command-list and preview-LaTeX-command.

So I know that this has something to do with handling file names with
spaces in them.  But even with that knowledge, and even after tracing
the execution of TeX-command-expand with edebug, I still find the way
this feature works mystifying.  The use of the variable “pos” is
mostly straightforward, but how it is supposed to interact with this
feature is a bit confusing.

I would like to understand the correct rules of how to use this
feature in order to program the correct expansion strings for use of
the latest version of latexmk with AUCTeX.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

-- 
Thanks,

Joe