Subject: bug#25594: 25.1.91; TeX input method is missing \sqrt macro

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:39:03 +0200

Tyler Smith <[email-masked]> writes:

> The TeX input method does not provide a translation for the \sqrt macro.
> The appropriate symbol, unicode Square Root, is available, and can be
> inserted using the obscure name \surd.
>
> Perhaps that's a well-known word to some, but for regular TeX users, it
> would be very helpful to have the following rule added to the
> (latin-ltx--define-rules ...) form in lisp/leim/quail/latin-ltx.el:
>
>  ("\\sqrt" ?√)

(I'm going through older Emacs bug reports that have received no
response.)

That seems a reasonable thing to add, and it's in patch form below.  But
what makes me hesitate to add it is that there's a commented-out
"\\sqrt[3]" in the file...  Does this mean that this should be
"\\sqrt[2]"?  Why is it commented out in the first place?  Don't
latin-ltx people like squares?  And roots?

So if anybody else who uses this input method could weigh in here, that
would be nice.

diff --git a/lisp/leim/quail/latin-ltx.el b/lisp/leim/quail/latin-ltx.el
index 93b1250a35..aed34d1265 100644
--- a/lisp/leim/quail/latin-ltx.el
+++ b/lisp/leim/quail/latin-ltx.el
@@ -703,6 +703,7 @@
  ("\\ldq" ?\“)
  ("\\rdq" ?\”)
  ("\\defs" ?≙)				; per fuzz/zed
+ ("\\sqrt" ?√)
  ;; ("\\sqrt[3]" ?∛)
  ("\\llbracket" ?\〚) 			; stmaryrd
  ("\\rrbracket" ?\〛)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no