I need to output the below text but since \ is a special character, I cannot:
[RegularExpression(@"\d+")]
Also sometimes I need use dollar sign $ as well but it seems to be a special char, too.
What is the way to escape those in LaTeX?
UPDATE:
I used \verb as suggested but I am unable to run commands inside it. Also, in the output the font and the opacity of the text is different than the default one:
\verb|[RegularExpression(\newline @"\d+")]|
The following ten characters have special meanings in (La)TeX:
&%$#_{}~^\
Outside \verb, the first seven of them can be typeset by prepending a backslash; for the other three, use the macros \textasciitilde, \textasciicircum, and \textbackslash.
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\& \% \$ \# \_ \{ \}
\textasciitilde
\textasciicircum
\textbackslash
\end{document}
Note that the seven "single non-letter" macros don't gobble the space following them. For the last three that do gobble up the space after them you can try one of these methods to add space.
\newcommand*{\textampersand}[0]{\&} or \renewcommand*{\textampersand}[0]{\&}. In XeLaTeX it is already available, I think.
– matth
May 9 '12 at 17:35
[ (and ]) also have a special meaning in certain circumstances. For example \item [a]bc will not print [a]bc (as it will be considered as an option passed to the command).
– kebs
Nov 11 '18 at 8:00
Usually text like that is typeset in typewriter type and so there's a slick way to arrange it
\verb|[RegularExpression(@"\d+")]|
After \verb should go a character that's not used in the text to print "verbatim" and the same character should follow the text.
This command has a drawback: it can't be used in the argument of other commands.
There's a second "solution" which can come handy if it's needed a limited number of times:
\texttt{[RegularExpression(@"\string\d+")]}
where commands inside the argument to \texttt are allowed. It's not even necessary to use \texttt:
\textsf{[RegularExpression(@"\string\d+")]}
will work as well (when T1 font encoding is active) and will print the string in sans serif type.
\pseudoverb, you've got [1} instead of [1]. And a drawback you don't mention of \detokenize is that it inserts spaces after macros names with more than one character (not sure if it's relevant for regular expressions).
– Philippe Goutet
Nov 12 '11 at 22:11
I needed a way to escape all special characters and I found this Perl function:
sub latex_escape {
my $paragraph = shift;
# Replace a \ with $\backslash$
# This is made more complicated because the dollars will be escaped
# by the subsequent replacement. Easiest to add \backslash
# now and then add the dollars
$paragraph =~ s/\\/\\backslash/g;
# Must be done after escape of \ since this command adds latex escapes
# Replace characters that can be escaped
$paragraph =~ s/([\$\#&%_{}])/\\$1/g;
# Replace ^ characters with \^{} so that $^F works okay
$paragraph =~ s/(\^)/\\$1\{\}/g;
# Replace tilde (~) with \texttt{\~{}}
$paragraph =~ s/~/\\texttt\{\\~\{\}\}/g;
# Now add the dollars around each \backslash
$paragraph =~ s/(\\backslash)/\$$1\$/g;
return $paragraph;
}
For example it will convert this:
& % $ # _ { } ~ ^ \ \today
into this:
\& \% \$ \# \_ \{ \} \texttt{\~{}} \^{} $\backslash$ $\backslash$today
