Heiko Oberdiek wrote:

I think a clear no:

it can be done by 'parsing strings' which is painful

If my understanding of Hans's idea is correct then \escapedpdf can be used the following way, eg.

\def\foo{bar} \pdfinfo{/Title (\escapedpdf{\foo})}

indeed

a) \escapedpdf has to be expandable. b) The argument is full expanded. The return value can be a string in the manner of \meaning (characters with catcode 12 and spaces with catcode 10).

indeed

b) can be achieved by \edef, but \edef cannot be used because of a).

Even if we have a full expanded string, how to parse it in a safe way? Catcodes? Espacially spaces are problematic:

indeed

* \scantokens from e-TeX is AFAIK expandable, but the catcode changes before are not.

right, it's also slow to prepare settings (definitions, catcodes etc) actually, it would be handy to have catcode vectors so that we could quickly swap 'm

* For the \@sanitize@onelevel or \meaning method a macro definition is necessary, violation of a). * \futurelet is not expandable. * Scan methods such as \scan#1(... are problematic and fail, if there are spaces in the string.

indeed, and * why should we complicate live when it can be programmed (i already wasted too many days on such painful things) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------