# Is there a \show for catcodes?

In the course of attempting to out-pedant another mathematician, I wanted to `\show` the catcode of `\$` to convince myself that it was a "special" character in ordinary TeX as well as LaTeX. I was just using a "dumb tex" session (that is, I invoked `tex` from the commandline with no file) so what I wanted was to be able to type:

``````\showcatcode\$
``````

but that didn't work. In the end, I did

``````\count255=\catcode`\$
\showthe\count255
``````

but that just doesn't smell right. What's the best way to `\show` the catcode of a token?

(To be clear, the result of a `\showcatcode` should go to the terminal and the log, not in the document itself.)

-
I believe that `\showthe` works for any internal integer, even strange ones like `\parshape`. –  TH. Jun 9 '11 at 12:19

``````\showthe\catcode`\$
Now that is bizarre. I tried that and it gave me nonsense. Yet now when I try it again, it works. Did you invoke `M-x quantum-butterfly` again? (I suspect that my earlier experiments messed things up so that the above didn't work, but not being used to working with `tex` on the commandline, I didn't spot it.) –  Loop Space Jun 9 '11 at 10:53
Otherwise a simple `\show \$` will indicate that it is the `math shift \$`, whereas `\show *` (say) gives `the character *`. –  Bruno Le Floch Jun 9 '11 at 13:25