Make soul and \texttt work together

Question

I was trying to redefine \texttt command to make it have background color using package soul. But it seems that it is harder than I thought.

My initial code is

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor, soul}
\colorlet{mycolor}{red!30}
\sethlcolor{mycolor}

\let\oldtexttt\texttt
\renewcommand{\texttt}[1]{
    \hl{\oldtexttt{#1}}
}

\begin{document}

\texttt{can we highlight}

\end{document}

But it won't run, the error message is:

Argument of \texttt has an extra }.

I searched and found this post. The post suggests to use \soulregister command. So I add the following line before \begin{document}:

\soulregister{\texttt}{1}

But the error persists. I also found this post, which further suggests to use \DeclareRobustCommand. Now my code is

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor, soul}
\colorlet{mycolor}{red!30}
\sethlcolor{mycolor}

\let\oldtexttt\texttt
% \renewcommand{\texttt}[1]{
%   \hl{\oldtexttt{#1}}
% }

\DeclareRobustCommand{\texttt}[1]{
    \hl{\oldtexttt{#1}}
}
\soulregister{\texttt}{1}

\begin{document}

\texttt{can we highlight}

\end{document}

But it doesn't work. The error message is

TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [grouping levels=255]

It seems like rabbit hole of issues. Can you point out what has gone wrong? How to fix this seemingly simple problem?

Edit:

I am using Pandoc to convert Markdown file to PDF. The underlying LaTeX command for Markdown inline code is \texttt. But there is no background color. That is why I want to combine soul and \texttt.

I have tried the solution of @egreg and @daleif. They both work for standard alone tex code.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor, soul}

\colorlet{mycolor}{red!30}
\sethlcolor{mycolor}

\let\oldtexttt\texttt

% \renewcommand{\texttt}[1]{
% {\ttfamily\hl{#1}}
% }

\DeclareRobustCommand{\texttt}[1]{%
    \hl{\ttfamily#1}%
}

\begin{document}

\texttt{can we highlight}

\end{document}

But if I put it in a file head.tex and compile Markdown to PDF, there are still errors. The content of head.tex is:

\usepackage{xcolor, soul}

\colorlet{mycolor}{red!30}
\sethlcolor{mycolor}

\let\oldtexttt\texttt
\DeclareRobustCommand{\texttt}[1]{%
    \hl{\ttfamily#1}%
}

Content of test.md is

`some inline words`

If I try to generate PDF using the new header:

pandoc -H head.tex -s test.md -o test.pdf

there occurs another error:

Package soul Error: Reconstruction failed.

Answer 1

The soul macros are rather special, it works on a macro level this cannot handle that the contents has "macros" in it.

I would not overload \texttt like that, make a special macro for it.

BTW: This works {\ttfamily\hl{#1}}

Answer 2

The working of \texttt is essentially absorbing its argument and issuing \ttfamily.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor, soul}

\colorlet{mycolor}{red!30}
\sethlcolor{mycolor}

\DeclareRobustCommand{\texttt}[1]{%
    \hl{\ttfamily#1}%
}

\begin{document}

\texttt{can we highlight}

\end{document}

On the other hand, it would be better to use a different command:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor, soul}

\colorlet{mycolor}{red!30}
\sethlcolor{mycolor}

\DeclareRobustCommand{\hltt}[1]{%
    \hl{\ttfamily#1}%
}

\begin{document}

\hltt{can we highlight}

\end{document}

Don't forget to protect the end-of-lines.