Section: Software

Catex

Participant : Yves Guiraud [ correspondant ] .

Catex is a preprocessor for (pdf)Latex for automatic production of diagrams representing 2-cells from their algebraic expression. It follows the same design as Tom, a Catex file being a Latex file enriched with formal islands corresponding to those algebraic expressions, such as:

\deftwocell[red]{delta : 1 -> 2}

\deftwocell[orange]{mu : 2 -> 1}

\deftwocell[crossing]{tau : 2 -> 2}

\twocell{(delta *0 delta) *1 (1 *0 tau *0 1) *1 (mu *0 mu)}

Catex dissolves such an island into Latex code, using the PGF/Tikz package. Executed on the result, (pdf)Latex produces the diagram presented in Figure 2 .

Figure 2. Diagram produced by Catex

Catex is being tested internally, until the syntax is stable enough. It has been used to produce a research paper [30] and slides for talks and reports.