Extract-math NPM

extract-math

Extract TeX math environments.

This package parses TeX shorthands for mathematics environments and extracts inline formulas (e.g.: $x + 1$ ) and displayed equations (e.g.: $$\sum_{i=1}^n 2^i$$).

import { extractMath } from 'extract-math'

const segments = extractMath('hello $e^{i\\pi}$')

console.log(segments)
// Output: [
//   { type: 'text', math: false, value: 'hello ', raw: 'hello ' },
//   { type: 'inline', math: true, value: 'e^{i\\pi}', raw: 'e^{i\\pi}' }
// ]

The primary use-case is to process the math segments with a math typesetting library like KaTeX.

Installation

You can install extract-math with your npm client of choice.

$ npm install extract-math

Usage

extractMath(input, options?)

Parse the input string and return an array of Segment objects. Segment objects are defined by the following typescript interface:

interface Segment {
  type: 'text' | 'display' | 'inline'
  math: boolean
  value: string
  raw: string
}

The Segment interface can be imported with import { Segment } from 'extract-math'

The function splits the input string into 3 different types of segments:

Plain text segments have a text type and the math property set to false
Displayed equations have a display type and the math property set to true
Inline formulas have an inline type and the math property set to true

The function will check that the closing delimiter isn't immediately followed by a digit before extracting a math segment. This prevents input like $20,000 and $30,000 from being interpreted as inline math.

The second parameter is optional and lets you specify custom options:

interface ExtractMathOptions {
  escape?: string
  delimiters?: {
    inline?: [string, string]
    display?: [string, string]
  }
  allowSurroundingSpace?: Array<'display' | 'inline'>
}

The ExtractMathOptions interface can be imported with import { ExtractMathOptions } from 'extract-math'

Here are the default values:

{
  escape: '\\',
  delimiters: {
    inline: ['$', '$'],
    display: ['$$', '$$']
  },
  allowSurroundingSpace: ['display']
}

You can extract formulas that use LaTeX math delimiters with the following options:

const segments = extractMath('hello \\(e^{i\\pi}\\)', {
  delimiters: {
    inline: ['\\(', '\\)'],
    display: ['\\[', '\\]']
  }
})

console.log(segments)
// Output: [
//   { type: 'text', math: false, value: 'hello ', raw: 'hello ' },
//   { type: 'inline', math: true, value: 'e^{i\\pi}', raw: 'e^{i\\pi}' }
// ]

By default, only the display mode allows the formula to be surrounded by space. You can change this with the allowSurroundingSpace option:

segments = extractMath('$ 42 $$$ 42 $$', {
  allowSurroundingSpace: ['inline', 'display']
})

console.log(segments)
// Output: [
//   { type: 'inline', math: true, value: ' 42 ', raw: ' 42 ' },
//   { type: 'display', math: true, value: ' 42 ', raw: ' 42 ' }
// ]

Escaping

Any delimiter immediately preceded by a backslash \ will be automatically escaped.

const segments = extractMath('in plain \\$ text $$in \\$ equation$$')

console.log(segments)
// Output: [
//   { type: 'text', math: false, value: 'in plain $ text ', raw: 'in plain $ text ' },
//   { type: 'display', math: true, value: 'in $ equation', raw: 'in \\$ equation' }
// ]

The raw property is set to the original string without interpreting the escape sequences. For plain text segments, the property is equal to the value property.

This comes in handy if you're feeding the math expressions to a math typesetting library like KaTeX that expects dollar signs to be escaped.