On 16/02/2011 10:51, Heiko Oberdiek wrote: > On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 07:04:42AM +0000, Joseph Wright wrote: > >> Again, post the code :-) I wonder what exactly you mean here. With the >> \expanded primitive (pdfTeX 1.50 or LuaTeX) you can do >> >> \edef\a{\expanded{\def\a{b}}} >> >> and have \a => 'b'. > > I doubt it. \edef is already expanding, \def is expanded > but it is not executed as primitive. Depending on the previous > definition of \a you get: > * \a previously undefined: error message > * \a defined, unexpandable: \a is macro => \def\a{b} > * \a defined, expandable: \a is expanded until only non-expandable > tokens are left or there is an error. In case of success, > \a is a macro that starts with "\def", followed by the result > of fully expansion of "\a{b}..." > > In most cases \edef\a{\def\a{b}} and > \edef\a{\expanded{\def\a{b}}} are the same, but there might > be differences, if \a is expandable and \noexpand or > \the<token register> are used. I must have misunderstood how \expanded works. I thought it could pull off assignments within \edef, in the same way you can do with \directlua and the appropriate Lua. -- Joseph Wright