Python Latex Library

Question

I often work with groups of materials and my file/materials are named as alphanumeric strings. Is there a library to turn a string like r"Mxene - Ti3C2" to latex styled r"Mxene - Ti$_\mathrm{3}$C$_\mathrm{2}$"?

I usually use a dictionary but going through every name is a hassle and prone to error because materials can always be added or removed from the study.

I know that I can use str.maketrans() to generate subscripts but I haven't had very consistent results using the output with matplotlib so I'd much rather use latex.

Answer 1

I've ultimately created this solution in case anyone else needs it. Since my problem is mostly to create subscripts, the following code will look for numbers and replace them with a latex equivalent to create one.

def latexify(s):

    import re
    nums = re.findall(r'\d+', s)
    pos = [[m.start(0), m.end(0)] for m in re.finditer(r'\d+', s)]
    numpos = list(zip(nums, pos))

    for num, pos in numpos:
        string = f"$_\mathrm{{{num}}}$"
        s = s[:pos[0]] + string + s[pos[1]:]
        
        for ind, (n, [p_st, p_end]) in enumerate(numpos):
            if p_st > pos[1]:
                numpos[ind][1][0] += len(string)-len(num)
                numpos[ind][1][1] += len(string)-len(num)
            
            pass
        
    return s

latexify("Ti32C2")

Returns:

'Ti$_\\mathrm{32}$C$_\\mathrm{2}$'