\lstMakeShortInline with @ delimiter

Question

I'm including a fair amount of inline C++ code in a beamer presentation I'm making, and I want to be able to use the short syntax for \lstinline. My code displays fine if I use, for example, the ! character as my delimiter, like

\lstMakeShortInline!
!cout << "This C++ displays fine";!

But when I try to use the @ character as my delimiter, because it will hardly ever appear in C++ code, the line is displayed unformatted, with literal @s surrounding it. As far as I know, @ is not a special character in LaTeX, so why is this happening?

Edit: I did not test the example I gave, and on further inspection, the only character that I can get to work as a delimiter is ~, as demonstrated with this example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{listings}
\lstMakeShortInline[language=C++,basicstyle=\ttfamily]~
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
~cout << "This C++ displays fine";~
\end{frame}
\end{document}

However, other delimiters (such as |) seem to work in the article documentclass, is this an issue with beamer?

Answer 1

If you try

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{listings}
\lstMakeShortInline[language=C++,basicstyle=\ttfamily]@
\lstMakeShortInline[language=C++,basicstyle=\ttfamily]|
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\show @
\show |
\end{frame}

\end{document}

the compilation stops with

> the character @.

and then with

> |=macro:
->\lstinline [language=C++,basicstyle=\ttfamily ]|.

showing the fundamental difference between the two cases: @ is normalized to have category code 12. This happens at begin document, so you can postpone your declaration:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{listings}
\lstMakeShortInline[language=C++,basicstyle=\ttfamily]|
\begin{document}
\lstMakeShortInline[language=C++,basicstyle=\ttfamily]@

\begin{frame}[fragile]
|cout << "This C++ displays fine";|

@cout << "This C++ displays fine";@
\end{frame}
\end{document}

will display both lines in the same way. Remember to declare fragile all frames where verbatim material is typeset.