\input inside \href

Question

I have a number of papers that include my email on the cover of the paper, and need to find a solution to \input my email address using \href. This way I will be able to edit my email once, and then get the most updated email address in all my papers every time I compile the file.

Is it possible to do something like this?

\href{mailto:{\input{/Path/to/my/file/with/my/email/address.txt}\unskip}}{{\input{/Path/to/my/file/with/my/email/address.txt}\unskip}}

Thanks guys.

Answer 1

This solution uses plain TeX I/O commands.

\begin{filecontents}{address.txt}
[email protected]
\end{filecontents}
%
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\newread\fid

\newcommand{\readfile}[1]% #1 = filename
{\bgroup
  \endlinechar=-1
  \openin\fid=#1
  \read\fid to\filetext
  \loop\ifx\empty\filetext\relax% skip over comments
    \read\fid to\filetext
  \repeat
  \closein\fid
  \global\let\filetext=\filetext
\egroup}

\begin{document}
\readfile{address.txt}
\href{mailto:\filetext}{\filetext}
\end{document}

Answer 2

Solution that fetches the mail address from a file to a macro via package catchfile:

\begin{filecontents}{address.txt}
[email protected]
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{catchfile}
\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}

\CatchFileDef\TheMailAddress{address.txt}{\endlinechar=-1}
% \endlinechar=-1 suppresses spaces by line ends

\begin{document}
\href{mailto:\TheMailAddress}{John Doe $\langle$\TheMailAddress$\rangle$}
\end{document}