# "Evaluated at" bar for derivatives: \Bigr, \biggr, or \left...\right?

I'm trying to determine if there is a best practice for typesetting the "evaluated at" bar for derivatives. The three possibilities I'm thinking of are shown in the code excerpt below:

\begin{gather*}
5 + \frac{df}{dt} \Bigr\rvert_{t = 0} \\
5 + \frac{df}{dt} \biggr\rvert_{t = 0} \\
5 + \left. \frac{df}{dt} \right\rvert_{t = 0} \\
\end{gather*}


The \Bigr option doesn't quite reach the top and bottom of the fraction. The \biggr option overshoots the top and bottom of the fraction by a little bit. And the \left...\right option has the same height as the \biggr option, but it introduces a little extra space between the + and the fraction. I'm having trouble deciding between these options. Is there a best practice for typesetting this?

• @egreg I agree those are related, though I don't think either of them addresses best practices for this particular situation. Feb 17 '16 at 20:41
• My suggestion would be to make it as a macro like \EvalAt[\Big]{t=0}  and then leave it to each case as to how much to scale. Left right constructions end up looking bad on most cases anyway Feb 17 '16 at 20:44
• This looks like a task for mathtools’s \DeclarePairedDelimiter.
– GuM
Feb 17 '16 at 21:17

Since \big is the minimum requested size anyway, it's better to use a simpler approach:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath,mleftright}
\usepackage{xparse}

\NewDocumentCommand{\evalat}{sO{\big}mm}{%
\IfBooleanTF{#1}
{\mleft. #3 \mright|_{#4}}
{#3#2|_{#4}}%
}

\begin{document}

\begin{align}
& \evalat{f(x)}{x=0} \\
& \evalat[\big]{f(x)}{x=0} \\
& \evalat[\Big]{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}{x=0} \\
& \evalat[\bigg]{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}{x=0} \\
& \evalat*{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}{x=0} \\
& \evalat[\bigg]{\frac{\partial^2 f}{\partial x^2}}{x=0} \\
& \evalat*{\frac{\partial^2 f}{\partial x^2}}{x=0} \\
& \evalat[\bigg]{\left(1+\frac{1}{x}\right)^{\!x^2}}{x=1} \\
& \evalat*{\left(1+\frac{1}{x}\right)^{\!x^2}}{x=1}
\end{align}

\end{document}


Note that the last one has a definitely too big bar.

Elaborating on daleif’s suggestion:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathtools}

\DeclarePairedDelimiter\evaluat{.}{\rvert}
\reDeclarePairedDelimiterInnerWrapper\evaluat{nostar}{\mathopen{}#2\mathclose{#3}}

\begin{document}

Some examples:
\begin{itemize}
\item with \verb|\evaluat[\big]|
$\evaluat[\big]{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
\item with \verb|\evaluat[\Bigg]|
$\evaluat[\Bigg]{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
\item with \verb|\evaluat*|
$\evaluat*{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
(in this case, a \verb|\left|\ \ldots\verb|\right| construction is
used);
\item and with \verb|\evaluat| (thanks again, egreg~;-)
$\evaluat{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
\end{itemize}

\end{document}


And here is the output:

## Afterthought

Since the OP put an emphasis on questions of style and best usage, I must correct an evident imperfection of the above code: although the \evaluat command produces, in all variants, a math list that begins with an Open atom and ends with a Close atom, nevertheless \evaluat* inserts \nulldelimiterspace on the left of the mandatory argument, while the other forms do not. This is easily corrected:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathtools}

\DeclarePairedDelimiter\evaluat{.}{\rvert}
\reDeclarePairedDelimiterInnerWrapper\evaluat{nostar}{%
\mathopen{}#2\mathclose{#3}%
}
\reDeclarePairedDelimiterInnerWrapper\evaluat{star}{%
\mathopen{}\mathclose\bgroup #1\hskip -\nulldelimiterspace \relax
#2\aftergroup\egroup #3%
}

\begin{document}

Some examples:
\begin{itemize}
\item with \verb|\evaluat[\big]|
$\evaluat[\big]{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
\item with \verb|\evaluat[\Bigg]|
$\evaluat[\Bigg]{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
\item with \verb|\evaluat*|
$\evaluat*{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
(in this case, a \verb|\left|\ \ldots\verb|\right| construction is
used);
\item and with \verb|\evaluat| (thanks again, egreg~;-)
$\evaluat{\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}}_{x=0}$
\end{itemize}

Difference between non-\verb|\big| and \verb|\big|:
$\evaluat{x}$, $\evaluat[\big]{x}$.

Test for \verb|\nulldelimiterspace|:
\begin{align*}
& 1+\evaluat{f(x)}_{x=0} \\
& 1+\evaluat*{f(x)}_{x=0}
\end{align*}

\end{document}


The output is:

Let us also magnify the portion pertaining to the \nulldelimiterspace test:

Of course, the rationale behind the choice of using \DeclarePairedDelimiter was that a simple definition would suffice, with the mathtools package taking care of all the details; if one needs to have recourse so heavily to callback routines, I agree with egreg that this approach loses its sense, and that it is better to directly define an appropriate command, as he does (however, I would recommend the same correction in his code too, and also to arrange for the generated math list to always begin with an Open atom—albeit unlikely, an Op could precede).

• Don't try \evaluat without the optional argument. ;-) Feb 17 '16 at 23:05
• A comment to myself: is really an initial Op atom the right thing to do? Consider $\limsup_{n\to\infty} \evaluat[\bigg]{\frac{df}{dx}}_{x=1/n}$
– GuM
Feb 18 '16 at 21:15
• @GustavoMezzetti Thanks for adding in the details to fix the \nulldelimiterspace. I didn't include any Open atoms in my first two examples, with \Bigr and \biggr; I guess I could have inserted some \mathopen{} atoms. But are you suggesting (in your comment to yourself) that such atoms are unnecessary? Feb 18 '16 at 22:11
• @justin: Actually more than this: I am changing my mind once more, and I am beginning to think that an initial \mathopen is actually wrong. Perhaps the best thing of all is to encompass the whole construction in an Ord atom… I no longer know: now it’s bedtime for me, I’ll come back fresh tomorrow! :-) Edit: Good question, anyway!
– GuM
Feb 18 '16 at 22:26

I've recently adopted the physics package as part of my usual tool kit, with the advantage that it provides a tool explicitly for this \evaluated{} (or \eval{}).

It seems to apply a minimum size bar, and to scale it up as needed.

Here is an minimal example extracted from a document I wrote for class recently

\documentclass{minimal}

\usepackage{physics}

\begin{document}
here we recognize the terminal velocity in the denominator of the
RHS
\begin{align*}
\Delta x
&= \mp\frac{m}{k} \int_{v_1}^{v_2}
\frac{v\dd{v}}{v^2 \pm v_t^2}  \\
\\
&= \mp\frac{m}{k} \frac{1}{2} \eval{\ln\qty({v^2 \pm
v_t^2})}_{v_1}^{v_2}  \\
\\
&= \mp\frac{m}{2k}
\qty[\ln\qty(v_2^2 \pm v_t^2) - \ln\qty(v_1^2 \pm v_t^2)]  \,.
\end{align*}
\end{document}


which generates this output:

The use of \eval is on the second line of the align environment.

I propose another solution, base on raisebox and a tabular environment. It allows for a greater control on the height and depth of the bar. It is possible (I didn't do it) to have a key=value system to have the height of the bar as a factor times the height of its contents, and its depth as another factor times the depth of the contents.

\documentclass{article}%
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\newcommand\eval[1]{\begin{array}[t]{@{}c@{\,}|@{\,}}%
\raisebox{0pt}[0.85\height][1.33\depth]{$\displaystyle#1$}\end{array}}

\begin{document}

\begin{align*}

Example in \verb|\scriptstyle|:
$$\frac{\evaluateat{f(x)}{x=0}}{g\left(\evaluateat{f(x)}{x=0}\right)}$$.

Another example:
$\evaluateat{df}{x} \colon T_{x}M\longrightarrow T_{y}N$

\end{document}


This is the output it yields: