If I understand it correctly, you may need something like this...? % Protection is key \protected\def\inner[#1]{\empty} % \outer is (or was) already defined in \CONTEXT % Please use another name \def\Outer{\inner[123] and \inner[some text] etc.} \startluacode local implement = interfaces.implement local argument = tokens.scanners.argument local function parseinner() local r = {} local str = argument() str = str:gsub("\\inner%s*(%b[])",function(s)r[#r+1] = s:sub(2,#s-1)end) context(table.concat(r," ")) -- Change " " by another spacer if needed end implement{name = "parseinner", public = true, actions = parseinner} \stopluacode \starttext \parseinner{\Outer} \stoptext However, this will only work with very simple cases (no nesting, etc.). Hope this helps. Best regards, Jairo El mar, 16 de nov. de 2021 a la(s) 14:22, Joey McCollum via ntg-context ( ntg-context@ntg.nl) escribió:
As the subject of this question suggests, this is really more of a question about expansion control (a topic that is still a bit obscure to me). Suppose I have a macro \inner that expects a single argument or an assignment of parameters in brackets. For my purposes, I don't want this macro to do anything when it is typeset, so I'll just define it as empty:
``` \def\inner[#1]\empty ```
Now suppose I have another macro \outer that invokes this macro with some specific input and sets some plain text after it:
``` \def\outer{\inner[123] etc.} ```
What I'd like to do is parse the argument of \inner in \outer. I was hoping that a string search in Lua would work, but I'm not having any luck. A minimal (non)-working example is included below:
```
\def\inner[#1]\empty
\def\outer{\inner[123] etc.}
\startluacode
local userdata = userdata or {}
function userdata.parseinner(str)
local innerparams = ""
if string.find(str, "\\inner(%b[])") then
i, j = string.find(str, "\\inner(%b[])")
innerparams = string.sub(str, i+1, j-1) -- we just want the content inside the brackets
end
context(innerparams)
return
end
\stopluacode
\def\parseinner#1{\ctxlua{userdata.parseinner([==[#1]==])}}
\starttext
Testing:\blank
\parseinner{\outer}
\stoptext ```
My problem is that when I pass \outer to the \parseinner macro, it gets fully expanded, so there isn't anything left to match "\\inner%b[]". Is there a way to expand \outer when I pass it to the \parseinner macro without also expanding the \inner macro inside it? Or is there some other preferred way of doing this?
Joey
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