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A journal, which I intend to submit to, asks that section headings are preceded with <heading number ...>. So I used this answer to create my custom prefix to the section headings: 

\renewcommand\thesection{\textless heading level 1\textgreater \ \arabic{section}}
\renewcommand\thesubsection{\textless heading level 2\textgreater \ \arabic{section}.\arabic{subsection}}
\renewcommand\thesubsubsection{\textless heading level 3\textgreater \ \arabic{section}.\arabic{subsection}.\arabic{subsubsection}}

This works very well for the headers, but when I \cite{ch:foo} the reference appears as "<heading level 2> 2.3", which I would like to avoid. The second answer on the question gives an alternative solution, which seems to me (as a Latex rookie) more of a hack: 

\makeatletter
\def\section{\@startsection{section}{1}{\z@ }%
  {-3.5ex\@plus -1ex\@minus -.2ex}{2.3ex \@plus .2ex}%
  {\noindent\normalfont \Large \bfseries Prefix\ }%
}
\makeatother

Can you propose a better way?

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1

Here is a solution

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\@sect}{\@seccntformat}{heading level #2 \@seccntformat}{}{}
\makeatother


\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{Foo}
\subsection{Foo}
\subsection{Foo}
\subsubsection{Foo}
\section{Bar}
\end{document}

enter image description here

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4
  • Thank you very much. Not sure what this does, but it works! – n1000 Jul 27 '16 at 18:11
  • @n1000 \(sub...)section use internal \@startsection which use internal \@sect which use internal \@seccntformat that format the number of (sub...)section here we redefine \@sect by adding the prefix just before \@seccntformat using\patchcmd for shortness. – touhami Jul 27 '16 at 19:13
  • Sorry to bother, but do you have any clue why this will not work when I \usepackage{hyperref}? – n1000 Jul 27 '16 at 20:12
  • 1
    this is because hyperref redefine some internals command to do the job. In this case just load hyperref after you make the change. – touhami Jul 27 '16 at 20:30

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