General ⇒ Messing with Command Arguments

[pkledgrape]

Ok, I know this isn't the most TeX-like of coding, but I'm trying to make a mini-package for instructors of this one course at my Uni, and I'd like to make it very readable.

What I am looking for: a way to make a command that takes one input from its left side, and one from its right side.

I know this is possible, because there are commands in TeX such as \atop:
\atop takes in TWO inputs, and puts one on top of the other; but it does it by

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{a \atop b}

rather than the normal \atop{a}{b}.

However, I don't need something that does what \atop does at all: eventually, I'm trying to draw logic circuits that look kind of like a labeled version of those at http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/s ... -diagrams/

I've worked out most of the details on how to tweak this example to get something that'll work like

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\cor{\cnot{p}}{\cand{q}{\cnot{p}}}

but would love to make it typeable as

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{\cnot{p} \cor {q \cand \cnot{p}}}

which I think will be easier for the instructors to write out and check for typos, since they'll be translating from a sentence that'll read something like "not p or (q and not p)"

So... despite it generally being ill-advised, does anyone know how I can make a new command that'll take one input from each side?

Thanks!

[josephwright]

It's not possible, at least in the general case. The TeX \atop primitive is not a macro: it's coded into the binary. So the syntax there is not defined in terms of some macro approach.

It is possible in some circumstances to create macros which look like they have similar syntax, but relies on delimited arguments. So something like

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\foo{ a \baz b}

can work if \foo is defined something like

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\def\foo#1{\@foo#1\stop}
\def\@foo#1\baz#2\stop{% do stuff
}

(In reality, this would need some sanity checks in case the user forgot \baz entirely.)