# newcommand vs. DeclareMathOperator


I found a question regarding arguments and DeclareMathOperator, and I wonder what other aspects should be taken into consideration when it comes to choosing which method to use when defining math operators.

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Run texdoc amsmath and see page 13f. – Marco Daniel Aug 17 '12 at 8:54
\DeclareMathOperator is a very special case of \newcommand, so the question as it stands is too generic to receive an answer. – egreg Aug 17 '12 at 9:09

\DeclareMathOperator is designed to create commands that should typeset operator names such as sin and lim. Some of these are already defined in base TeX or LaTeX so one writes 2\sin\theta

instead of 2sin\theta

giving correct spacing and font. If you need an operator of this type that is not predefined, then you create it with \DeclareMathOperator, e.g. the space of endomorphisms of a vector space is written \End V

but you need to make the definition \DeclareMathOperator{\End}{End} first: a minimal working example is

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsopn}
\DeclareMathOperator{\End}{End}
\begin{document}

$$\End V$$

\end{document}




Finally, one should note that there is a starred version \DeclareMathOperator*. This is used for defining operators that have limits typeset beneath them instead of to the right (at least when in a display). For example

Similarly there is the starred variant \operatorname*.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsopn}
\DeclareMathOperator{\End}{End}
\DeclareMathOperator*{\Max}{Max}
\begin{document}

\begin{displaymath}
\Max_{x\in A} f(x) \qquad  \End_R V
\end{displaymath}

\end{document}

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Great answer, Andrew! :) By the way, I know you've been here for almost two months now, but I'd like to "officially" welcome you to our community. Make yourself at home! It's very rewarding to have a new TeX friend with us eager to improve knowledge and make this community even better. :) – Paulo Cereda Aug 17 '12 at 10:58
Many thanks for the comments and the kind welcome. I have edited my answer to make the example slightly more realistic using \boldsymbol instead. – Andrew Swann Aug 17 '12 at 13:14
@egreg and Barbara Beeton: I have now put in a different example without this bold symbol issue. – Andrew Swann Aug 17 '12 at 18:58
@barbarabeeton: the bm versus boldsymbol issue was tackled in tex.stackexchange.com/q/3238 – Philippe Goutet Aug 17 '12 at 19:48
It is worth to mention that there is also a starred version of \operatorname. – Rauni Nov 27 '14 at 1:51

I usually use

\newcommand{\Ker}{\operatorname{Ker}}


\DeclareMathOperator{\Ker}{Ker}


However, the second is much practical.

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Nice because it allows to do \renewcommand, and I don't know what is the equivalent for DeclareMathOperator. – Stéphane Laurent Jan 8 '14 at 10:02
You can first "undefine" the command by \letting it be equal to \relax, e.g., \let\div\relax \DeclareMathOperator{\div}{div}. – MSC May 15 '15 at 12:47

Another difference is that \DeclareMathOperator can only be used in the preamble while \newcommand has no such restriction.

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Does anyone know why that is? – Tyson Williams Apr 12 '15 at 21:18
All \Declare... commands share the property. See Dox's answer, though. – egreg Apr 12 '15 at 21:37
Thx for anwers... I also read lshort and I am using latex a lot but I didn't know the difference – Jozef Janočko Apr 20 at 20:14