Sstrhsrtj

We need to make a paper that describes a list of interfaces. The assignment however says we need to sort the interfaces alphabetically. Because this list is quite long (20+) I am looking for a way to sort the subsections (each subsection describes an interface) alphabetically. Without having to move code myself.

Is there a package that can handle this?

Here is a sample of the code:

newcommand{interfaceItem}[5]{

   subsection{#1}label{interfaceItem:#1}

   paragraph{Paragraph 1}#2

   paragraph{Paragraph 2}#3

   paragraph{Paragraph 3}#4

   paragraph{Paragraph 4}#5

}

Here's an implementation:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{xparse}

ExplSyntaxOn

NewDocumentCommand{interfaceItem}{mmmmm}

 {

  seq_put_right:Nn l_commusoft_interfaces_seq {#1}

  cs_new:cpn { commusoft_interface_#1: } {

    subsection{#1}label{interfaceItem:#1}

    paragraph{Paragraph 1}#2

    paragraph{Paragraph 2}#3

    paragraph{Paragraph 3}#4

    paragraph{Paragraph 4}#5

  }

 }

NewDocumentCommand{printInterfaces}{ }

 {

  seq_sort:Nn l_commusoft_interfaces_seq

   {

    string_compare:nnnTF {##1} {>} {##2} {sort_return_swapped:} {sort_return_same:}

   }

  seq_map_inline:Nn l_commusoft_interfaces_seq { use:c { commusoft_interface_##1: } }

 }

seq_new:N l_commusoft_interfaces_seq

prg_new_conditional:Npnn string_compare:nnn #1 #2 #3 {TF}

  {

   if_int_compare:w pdftex_strcmp:D {#1}{#3} #2 c_zero

    prg_return_true:

   else:

    prg_return_false:

   fi

  }

ExplSyntaxOff



interfaceItem{A}{A1}{A2}{A3}{A4}

interfaceItem{C}{C1}{C2}{C3}{C4}

interfaceItem{B}{B1}{B2}{B3}{B4}



begin{document}



printInterfaces



end{document}

However, a simpler strategy can be easier:

makeatletter

newcommand{interfaceItem}[5]{

   @namedef{interface@detokenize{#1}}{%

     subsection{#1}label{interfaceItem:#1}

     paragraph{Paragraph 1}#2

     paragraph{Paragraph 2}#3

     paragraph{Paragraph 3}#4

     paragraph{Paragraph 4}#5

    }

}

newcommand{printInterface}[1]{%

  @nameuse{interface@detokenize{#1}}%

}

makeatother

You define your interfaces as before, in the preamble,

interfaceItem{A}{A1}{A2}{A3}{A4}

interfaceItem{C}{C1}{C2}{C3}{C4}

interfaceItem{B}{B1}{B2}{B3}{B4}

and then say

printinterface{A}



printinterface{B}



printinterface{C}

Sorting a list of short commands is easier than sorting big chunks of code.

TeX is Turing complete language so I am sure the problem can be "easily" solved. However, this is best done (at least on Unix) with the standard Unix tools. Create a directory interfaces in which you would create a separate .tex file for the description of each interface. Something like

z-interface.tex

a-interface.tex

q-interface.tex

b-interface.tex

Now do something like

ls interfaces > interface-names.txt

which will create interface-names.txt file with interfaces sorted in alphabetical order. Using awk you can easily add input TeX command in front of each file name. Like

awk '{print "\input",$1}' interface-names.txt > interface-names.tex

Now just put the following line

input interface-names.tex

into your main .tex file and you will have all sub sections in proper order as long as main .tex file and interface .tex files are in the same directory.