General ⇒ Errors from addcontentsline when calling it on macro contents containing macros themselves

[Bozack]

I'm working on putting together a class for my thesis, using a bunch of user-defined macros and such for layout and semi-automatic layout. Currently, I have a "database"-esque system where I add publications, which can then be automatically output in a list-of-publications, and have automatically generated front-pages for each of the publications included in the end of the thesis.

I simply add a publication to the "database" by running a command \definepublication{name}{header}{title}{authorlist}{journal} (simplified for the MWE here) defined by

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\newcommand\definepublication[5]{%   \definepublication{name}{header}{title}{authorlist}{journal}
  \expandafter\def\csname #1header\endcsname{#2}      % #2 header
  \expandafter\def\csname #1title\endcsname{#3}       % #3 title
  \expandafter\def\csname #1authorlist\endcsname{#4}  % #4 authorlist
  \expandafter\def\csname #1journal\endcsname{#5}     % #5 journal
}

Now, I have this working up to a point. My problem comes when I want the front-pages for each of the publications added to the table of contents. I want to simply add a line with \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{\hspace{-1.6em}<publication-header>}, where <publication-header> would be automatically input during calling the macro to insert the front-page. (I have to use \addcontentsline instead of just letting \chapter{} handle it, since I want a specific layout in the ToC - details of which are irrelevant here.)

So far, I have a macro using ifthenelse from the ifthen package to call back to the "database" and output whatever information is wanted (this is also simplified for the MWE),

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\newcommand{\publicationlist}[2]{%  \publicationlist{name}{what-you-want-out}
  % Get the information for the named publication 
  \def\pubheader{\csname #1header\endcsname}
  \def\pubtitle{\csname #1title\endcsname}
  \def\pubauthors{\csname #1authorlist\endcsname}
  \def\pubjournal{\csname #1journal\endcsname}
  
  % Output what is needed in the form that it should have
  \ifthenelse{ \equal{#2}{header} }%
    { \pubheader }{}%
  \ifthenelse{ \equal{#2}{text} }%
    { \section*{\pubjournal} \pubauthors \\[2.5mm] ``\pubtitle'' }{}%
}

and I have a macro that will create the front-page for the publication inclusion,

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\newcommand{\publicationfrontpage}[1]{%  \publicationfrontpage{name}
  \def\pubchaptername{\publicationlist{#1}{header}}%
  \chapter*{\pubchaptername}
  \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{\hspace{-1.6em}\pubchaptername} 
  \publicationlist{#1}{text}
}

Then I can have a simple document like

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\documentclass{extbook}
\usepackage{ifthen}
<... macros ...>
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\definepublication{testarticle}{Publication IV}{title-of-article}{all-of-the-authors}{Journal-name}
\publicationfrontpage{testarticle}
\end{document}

which will call all of these functions and automatically create the front-page for that given publication.

Now the problem is that the \addcontentsline macro creates a ton of error messages at compile, but if I replace the \pubchaptername in there with simple text, or even \testarticleheader (which is technically what the \def\pubchaptername{\publicationlist{#1}{header}} calls in the case of that particular publication), there are no errors.

Is there something about expansion that I do not understand, or does this go deeper? Thank you so much if you read through all of this and might have a suggestion!



I have attached a full MWE where this error shows up - to make it easier to test on other systems:

MWE.tex

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