Re: [matplotlib-devel] Different behaviour of mathtext and LaTeX rendering

[Manuel M. <mm...@as...>]

Michael Droettboom wrote:
> Manuel Metz wrote:
>> Michael Droettboom wrote:
>>  
>>> There was a discussion on this list around a year ago about this.  The
>>> concern was that not rendering $ as $ would break (matplotlib) backward
>>> compatibility with scripts that don't care about math at all but use a
>>> lot of dollar signs (e.g. financial plots).  This is one of the few
>>> places where we deliberately broke usetex compatibility in favour of
>>> matplotlib compatibility.
>>>
>>> That said, it's probably a bug that the escaped dollar sign in non-math
>>> context is not rendered as a dollar sign.
>>>
>>> As a workaround "$\$%1.2f$" works with usetex on or off, with the
>>> proviso that it uses math- rather than text-rendering for the numbers.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>     
>>
>> In that case I suggest to note this somewhere in the docs (and User
>> Guide) with three exclamation marks (or is it ???).
>>   
> So there's really two sub-bugs here:
> 
> 1) '\$8' gives '\$8' in mathtext (well, actually it gets sent verbatim
> to the non-math text renderer, which is a bug).  This, IMHO, is a
> "must-fix".
> 
> 2) '$8' gives '$8' in mathtext and an error in usetex.  This could be
> solved in two ways:
> 
> a) document the difference
> b) make '$8' give '$8' in usetex as well
> 
> I realise b) is technically making usetex accept a string that is not
> normally valid TeX -- but it's not like a user would ever enter '$8' and
> *want* to get a TeX error back.  And usetex strings aren't perfectly TeX
> anyway.
> 
> Personally, I'm leaning toward b), because it requires less mental
> effort for the user turning usetex on/off.  And it doesn't force us to
> backtrack on the idea of supporting "$100.00" easily.

+1 + docs of this behavior

> But before I commit -- any feedback?
> 
> Mike
>