Changing the font for equation numbering

I know that I can change the font for the equation numbers by redefining the \theequation command by, say,

\renewcommand{\theequation}{{\sffamily\arabic{equation}}}

I am wondering if there's a better way of doing this. The reason I ask is because if I include the section number to the equation numbers using the following amsmath command

\numberwithin{equation}{section}

then this will nullify the previous redefinition. Of course an obvious solution for this is to just use

\renewcommand{\theequation}{{\sffamily\thesection.\arabic{equation}}}

but I am curious if there's another way.

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I think your obvious solution is the right way to go. There's certainly no harm in it.

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I agree; I read the amsmath package manual and it seems the "obvious solution" I mentioned is the most basic approach. Thanks. –  user11126 Aug 27 '10 at 2:05
Unfortunately this does not change the font of the brackets around the number. –  mritz_p Apr 8 '14 at 16:45

You could use the \pretocmd command of the etoolbox package to insert code at the beginning of \theequation (and leave the rest of its definition unchanged).

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\pretocmd{\theequation}{\sffamily}{}{}

(The code snipped must be placed after using \numberwithin and the like.)

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