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Which one should be used in limit, \rightarrow or \to?

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I use \to, it's nice and faster – Spike May 27 '11 at 6:47
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it makes no difference – Herbert May 27 '11 at 6:51
I also use \to in limit, but I am not sure whether or not it is intentionally designed for that. – xport May 27 '11 at 6:51
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With a good editor and good shorcuts, \righrarrowis more explicit and you can see the difference with \longrightarrow or \righrarrow. So it's depends of the user ! – Alain Matthes May 27 '11 at 7:28
I prefer \to since it reads like the math. – Will Sep 18 '12 at 1:57

2 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

They are the same character. If you say \show\to and \show\rightarrow then both is \mathchar"3221. So use \to it is shorter

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And in fontmath.ltx there's \let\to=\rightarrow. – egreg May 27 '11 at 7:56
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In this case I'd rather recommend "Use the one that makes more sense semantically". – Martin Tapankov May 27 '11 at 13:13
up vote 12 down vote

In your document you should always use \to because it describes the meaning of what you're trying to write (i.e. a limit when x tends to some value).

In general its a good idea to prefer the use of commands which tell you the meaning of the symbol (in your particular context) and not just the name of the symbol.

For the very same reason I use

\let\lthen\rightarrow

And then write A \lthen B for implication in logic formulas.

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+1: Amazing just how many people don't understand this – Brent.Longborough May 27 '11 at 18:00

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