Browse and search text snippets in emacs and insert them as LaTeX input

Question

Suppose I have a lot of small text snippets (including some LaTeX-code).

Now I want to create a LaTeX document with emacs which includes some of the text snippets. I know yasnippet which can expand keywords to the snipped but that's not what I want. Instead I am looking for something like this:

• Invoke an emacs command insert-snippet
• Then I can browse, search filter and select one (or at best also multiple snippets)
• The snippets should not be copied to the file but included via an LaTeX input statement say \input{snippet1} (or if multiples are selected: \input{snippet1} \input{snippet5}.

If I edit the main file and point is on say \input{snippet3} there should be a command to view the content of this snippet (any maybe replace it by another one).

The approach described above seems to require that each snippet is saved in a separate file - otherwise the \input statement wouldn't work. However this seems to make it harder to edit the snippets. Maybe one option would be to edit them using the multifiles package (then you can edit them just as they where one file) or just grep them with helm-do-grep and browse it with executing helm-persistent-action...

Another idea would be to use another command instead of \input like \ExecuteMetaData[inputfile]{mytag1} from the catchfilebetweentags package. Then you could store them in one file.

Another option would be to store the snippets in one file like

\newcommand{\mysnippet1}{
Snippet Text
}

Some text or comments.

\newcommand{\mysnippet2}{
Snippet Text
}

And then input \mysnippet2 instead of \input{mysnippet2}.

If no library exists which does what I want, what would you suggest where to start to realize this by myself?

Answer 1

This might do what you want: store your 'snippeds' in a .tex file, and use use AucTex's auto-complete to look them up for you.

e.g., main.tex:

\documentclass{article}
\include{snippeds}

\begin{document}

``\mysnippedA'' is a macro. I have a second macro: \mysnippedB.

\end{document}

snippeds.tex:

\newcommand{\mysnippedA}{
Snipped Text
}

\newcommand{\mysnippedB}{
More snipped text!
}

You need to set a few variables to get the files parsed (i.e., so AucTex knows which macros to complete):

 (setq TeX-parse-self t) ; Enable parse on load.
 (setq TeX-auto-save t)

Alternatively, you can call C-c C-n to manually reparse the files.

Once that's done, C-c C-m or C-c RETURN, (TeX-insert-macro) will prompt you for macro name completions, which now include your custom definitions.

More details in the AucTex Manual: (auctex) Completion, (auctex) Parsing Files,