How to remove all dashes (-) using a macro?

Question

In a package, I'm building macro names from the values of options passed to a function. Now, the values should also allow a - inside, but the command names I'm building with \csname do not. So, I need to remove all - from the option value inside the \csname...\endcsname. How can I do this.

Simple example:

\documentclass{report}

\makeatletter
% Create tex name of the form "test@ARGUMENT". 
% PROBLEM: Need to remove - from #1...
\newcommand{\process}[1]{\typeout{Process called with `#1'} \csname test@#1\endcsname}
\newcommand{\test@mytag}{\typeout{test@mytag called} It worked}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
% The following should actually try to execute \test@mytag (i.e. the - removed)
\process{my-tag} % Doesn't work, needed for values like shade-tb-inverse
\process{mytag} % Works, but ugly with values like shadetbinverse
\end{document}

I want a command that takes an argument (in my case, an option value filtered by xkeyval's choicekey to one of certain valid values). Now, I want to call a command \test@VALUE. Unfortunately, the option values should allow dashes, like my-tag or shade-lr. As LaTeX does not allow dashes in commands, I need to filter all - inside the \csname. How can I do that?

Answer 1

\documentclass{report}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\textdash{-}
\begingroup
\catcode`\-=\active
\newcommand\dashtodash{}
\gdef\dashtodash{\def-{\textdash}}
\newcommand\ignoredash{}
\gdef\ignoredash{\def-{}}
\endgroup

\newcommand{\process}{\begingroup\catcode`\-=\active \@process}
\newcommand\@process[1]{\endgroup\dashtodash\typeout{Process called with `#1'}\ignoredash \csname test@#1\endcsname}
\newcommand{\test@mytag}{\typeout{test@mytag called} It worked}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
% The following should actually try to execute \test@mytag (i.e. the - removed)
\process{my-tag} % Doesn't work, needed for values like shade-tb-inverse
\process{mytag} % Works, but ugly with values like shadetbinverse
\end{document}

Answer 2

I don't understand why you would need to remove dashes from your string to pass it to a \csname construction, but here is a package-less solution. I'm assuming that there are no spaces and that eTeX is available, otherwise, you need more work.

\newcommand*{\csremovedashes}[1]
  {\csname\expandafter\csremovedashes@\detokenize{#1}-\endcsremovedashes-}
\newcommand*{\csremovedashes@}{}
\long\def\csremovedashes@#1-{#1\csremovedashes@}
\newcommand*{\endcsremovedashes}[1]{\endcsname}

In two steps, \csremovedashes{ab-c} expands to \abc.

Answer 3

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{xstring}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\process[1]{%
  \StrDel{#1}{-}[\myString]%
  \typeout{Process called with `\myString'} \csname test@\myString\endcsname}
\newcommand\test@mytag{\typeout{test@mytag called} It worked}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
% The following should actually try to execute \test@mytag (i.e. the - removed)
\process{my-tag}
\process{mytag}

\end{document}