handle \linebreak

[symphorien]

No description provided.

[torik42]

For what do you use \linebreak? We also replace \\ and \newline only with a space ' '. I see no reason in adding one \n. And adding a whole paragraph is not what \linebreak does.

Even adding a space is only a good idea for \linebreak and \linebreak[4] which indeed force a line-break (here, it is indeed a good idea). But for \linebreak[n] with n=0,1,2,3, this can produce false negatives, when the line break does not happen, e.g., There\linebreak[0]is a missing space. And I assume, this is much more common, than a wrong line break, e.g., Thi\linebreak[4]s is a wrong line break (at least for n<4). And I see no way to determine where LaTeX inserts the line break.

[symphorien]

I tried replacing with an empty string, but then \linebreak without argument eats the space.

[torik42]

I see. That’s also what LaTeX does, if you define a command \newcommand{\test}[1][]{} and write A\test B. With the difference, that \linebreak without argument will insert a line break.

If I understand correctly, you would be fine with

source	output
A\linebreak B	A B
A\linebreak[4]B, A\linebreak [4]B	A B
A\linebreak[n]B, A\linebreak [n]B (n<4)	AB

This should be doable with Macro(…) definitions. I’ll have a look later.

I see a problem with A\linebreak\linebreak B though, which leaves an empty line in the PDF. The same happens for \\. I might open a separate issue for that.

[torik42]

I added another branch with an implementation that seems to work. I think only 0,1,2,3 and 4 are allowed, although LaTeX doesn’t complain when using other numbers (and interprets all of them as 4). I now allow the above mentioned numbers (plus extra white space) and write an LATEXXXERROR if something else is provided. You can try it out in the add-linebreak branch.

Does that work for you?

[symphorien]

Honestly I forgot my original use case, so please go for it, by all means!