4.1.2 Selecting and Executing a Command

Once you started the command selection with C-c C-c, C-c C-r or C-c C-b you will be prompted for the type of command. AUCTeX will try to guess which command is appropriate in the given situation and propose it as default. Usually this is a processor like ‘TeX’ or ‘LaTeX’ if the document was changed or a viewer if the document was just typeset. Other commands can be selected in the minibuffer with completion support by typing ﹤TAB﹥.

The available commands are defined by the variable TeX-command-list. Per default it includes commands for typesetting the document (e.g. ‘LaTeX’), for viewing the output (‘View’), for printing (‘Print’), for generating an index (‘Index’) or for spell checking (‘Spell’) to name but a few. You can also add your own commands by adding entries to TeX-command-list. Refer to its doc string for information about its syntax. You might also want to look at TeX-expand-list to learn about the expanders you can use in TeX-command-list.

Note that the default of the variable occasionally changes. Therefore it is advisable to add to the list rather than overwriting it. You can do this with a call to add-to-list in your init file. For example, if you wanted to add a command for running a program called ‘foo’ on the master or region file, you could do this with the following form.

(eval-after-load "tex"   '(add-to-list 'TeX-command-list        '("Foo" "foo %s" TeX-run-command t t :help "Run foo") t)) 

As mentioned before, AUCTeX will try to guess what command you want to invoke. If you want to use another command than ‘TeX’, ‘LaTeX’ or whatever processor AUCTeX thinks is appropriate for the current mode, set the variable TeX-command-default. You can do this for all files by setting it in a mode hook or per file by specifying it as a file variable (see (emacs)File Variables section ‘File Variables’ in The Emacs Editor).

user option TeX-command-default

The default command to run in this buffer. Must be an entry in TeX-command-list.

In case you use biblatex in a document, when automatic parsing is enabled AUCTeX checks the value of ‘backend’ option given to biblatex at load time to decide whether to use BibTeX or Biber for bibliography processing. Should AUCTeX fail to detect the right backend, you can use the file local LaTeX-biblatex-use-Biber variable.

variable LaTeX-biblatex-use-Biber

If this boolean variable is set as file local, it tells to AUCTeX whether to use Biber with biblatex. In this case, the autodetection of the biblatex backend will be overridden. You may want to set locally this variable if automatic parsing is not enabled.

After confirming a command to execute, AUCTeX will try to save any buffers related to the document, and check if the document needs to be reformatted. If the variable TeX-save-query is non-nil, AUCTeX will query before saving each file. By default AUCTeX will check emacs buffers associated with files in the current directory, in one of the TeX-macro-private directories, and in the TeX-macro-global directories. You can change this by setting the variable TeX-check-path.

user option TeX-check-path

Directory path to search for dependencies.

If nil, just check the current file. Used when checking if any files have changed.

When performing spell checking on a document or a region (invoked through AUCTeX’s ‘Spell’ command or M-x ispell RET), you want the spell checking program to skip certain macro arguments and environments, most notably the arguments of referencing macros and the contents of verbatim environments. The skipped parts are controlled by variable ispell-tex-skip-alists provided by ‘ispell.el’. AUCTeX has a library which can be added to this variable depending on the value of TeX-ispell-extend-skip-list which is set to t by default.

user option TeX-ispell-extend-skip-list

This boolean option controls whether AUCTeX activates its extension for skipping certain macro arguments and environments when spell checking.

When non-nil, AUCTeX loads the file ‘tex-ispell.el’ and adds its content to ispell-tex-skip-alists. This library can and will never be complete, but the interface can be used to add selected and private macro names within your init file or on a file local basis.

ispell-tex-skip-alists has the following structure:

(defvar ispell-tex-skip-alists   '((;; First list      ("\\\\addcontentsline"         ispell-tex-arg-end 2)      ("\\\\\\([aA]lph\\|arabic\\)"  ispell-tex-arg-end)      ("\\\\makebox"                 ispell-tex-arg-end 0)      ("\\\\documentclass" . "\\\\begin{document}"))     (;; Second list      ("\\(figure\\|table\\)\\*?"  ispell-tex-arg-end 0)      ("list"                      ispell-tex-arg-end 2)      ("verbatim\\*?" . "\\\\end{verbatim\\*?}")))   "*Lists of regions to be skipped in TeX mode. First list is used raw. Second list has key placed inside \\begin{}.") 

Each item is an alist and the structure of it is described in ispell-skip-region-alist:

(defvar ispell-skip-region-alist   '((...))   "Alist expressing beginning and end of regions not to spell check. The alist key must be a regular expression. Valid forms include:   (KEY) - just skip the key.   (KEY . REGEXP) - skip to the end of REGEXP.                    REGEXP may be string or symbol.   (KEY REGEXP) - skip to end of REGEXP.  REGEXP must be a string.   (KEY FUNCTION ARGS) - FUNCTION called with ARGS                         returns end of region.") 

Let’s go through the first list of ispell-tex-skip-alists line by line:

("\\\\addcontentsline"         ispell-tex-arg-end 2) 

KEY is the string "\\\\addcontentsline", FUNCTION is ispell-tex-arg-end called with ARGS, here 2. ispell-tex-arg-end is a function provided by ‘ispell.el’ which skips as many subsequent optional arguments in square brackets as it sees and then skips ARGS number of mandatory arguments in braces. Omitting ARGS means skip 1 mandatory argument. In practice, when you have something like this in your document:

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Some text} 

The first two arguments are left out and ‘Some text’ will be spell checked. For the next line

("\\\\\\([aA]lph\\|arabic\\)"  ispell-tex-arg-end) 

the name of the counter as argument is skipped. Next line is

("\\\\makebox"                 ispell-tex-arg-end 0) 

where only optional arguments are skipped, the first mandatory argument is checked, e.g.

\makebox[0pt][l]{Some text} 

Finally, the next line

("\\\\documentclass" . "\\\\begin{document}")) 

ensures that the entire preamble of a document is discarded. Second list works the same; it is more convenient for environments since KEY is wrapped inside \begin{}.

AUCTeX provides two functions to add items to car and cdr of ispell-tex-arg-end, namely TeX-ispell-skip-setcar and TeX-ispell-skip-setcdr. The argument of these functions is exactly as in ispell-tex-skip-alists. Additions can be done via init file, e.g.:

(eval-after-load "tex-ispell"   '(progn      (TeX-ispell-skip-setcar       '(("\\\\mymacro" ispell-tex-arg-end)))      (TeX-ispell-skip-setcdr       '(("myverbatim" . "\\\\end{myverbatim}"))))) 

Another possibility is to use file local additions at the end of your TeX file, e.g.:

%%% Local Variables: %%% mode: latex %%% TeX-master: t %%% eval: (TeX-ispell-skip-setcar '(("\\\\mymacro" . "{[-0-9]+}"))) %%% End: 

Finally, AUCTeX provides a function called TeX-ispell-tex-arg-end which sees more arguments than ispell-tex-arg-end. Refer to its doc string for more information.

AUCTeX also provides a facility to skip the argument of in-line verbatim macros like ‘\Verb’ from ‘fancyvrb.sty’ or ‘\mintinline’ from ‘minted.sty’. Characters delimiting the verbatim text are stored in TeX-ispell-verb-delimiters.

user option TeX-ispell-verb-delimiters

String with delimiters recognized for in-line verbatim macros. This variable is initialized to ‘!|#~\"*/+^-’. Since this string is used to build a character alternative inside a regular expression, special characters ‘^’ and ‘-’ should come last. Other characters like opening brace ‘{’, asterisk ‘*’ or at sign ‘@’ should be avoided as they are not recognized by ‘font-latex.el’.