Re: How to insert apostrophe (') into code and verbatim text?

[Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>]

Uriel Avalos <amscopub-mail@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Here's an easy one for the guru's, why does an apostrophe at the beginning of a =code= not work? When I export the following text to HTML, the "'life" variable isn't set as code (and the = symbols show up):
> 
> 	Select ='life= for the x variable.
> 
> If I escape the apostrophe, I course get back the escape character in the HTML:
> 
>     	Select =\'life= for the x variable.
> 

Emphasis is applied by matching against a regular expression stored in the variable
org-emph-re. I get

,----
| org-emph-re is a variable defined in `org.el'.
| Its value is 
| "\\([ 	('\"{]\\|^\\)\\(\\([*/_=~+]\\)\\([^ 	
\n,\"']\\|[^ 	
\n,\"'].*?\\(?:\n.*?\\)\\{0,1\\}[^ 	
\n,\"']\\)\\3\\)\\([- 	.,:!?;'\")}\\]\\|$\\)"
| 
| Documentation:
| Regular expression for matching emphasis.
`----

which is way too complicated for my simple mind to wrap around without
some guidance. But the doc for org-export-with-emphasize says:

,----
| org-export-with-emphasize is a variable defined in `org-exp.el'.
| Its value is t
| 
| Documentation:
| Non-nil means, interpret *word*, /word/, and _word_ as emphasized text.
| If the export target supports emphasizing text, the word will be
| typeset in bold, italic, or underlined, respectively.  Works only for
| single words, but you can say: I *really* *mean* *this*.
| Not all export backends support this.
| 
| This option can also be set with the +OPTIONS line, e.g. "*:nil".
`----

so *words* are emphasized[1].

Can you write

 	Select '=life= for the x variable.

instead? The quote is not part of the <code> block, but does that
make much difference? And if it does, a little postprocessing on the
HTML might be all that is needed[2].

HTH,
Nick

[1] although after staring at it for a while and with the hindsight
provided by the org-export-with-emphasize doc, the part that goes [^ 	^M\n,\"']
specifically excludes spaces, tabs, carriage returns, newlines,
commas, double quotes and single quotes as components of words.

[2] You might try changing the RE (it is constructed in
org.el:org-set-emph-re()) - but regular expressions are very unforgiving
beasts: you forget one character or add one too many and the whole thing
goes to hell in a handbasket, faster than a bat out of hell - choose
your own cliche' :-)