Text Formatting ⇒ [1,2,3,4,5] into [1-5] WITHOUT adding packages (i.e. natbib)

[Successful]

This problem is frustrating the heck out of me. How can i turn [1,2,3,4,5] into [1-5] WITHOUT using bibtex, natbib, citep, mcite, etc. ???? It is imperative that I not use anything but the most basic of LaTeX commands. i.e.

\begin{thebibliography}{99}
\bibitem{Author} asdfasdfasdf
\end{thebibliography}

I can't figure out how to get that hyphen in there.

right now i'm using

Code: Select all

~\cite{Kooij, Muskens2006, Kreibig, BohrenHuffman, vandeHulst}

to get it in there, but i need it to show up as [1-5]. all my references are in order of appearance and I read somewhere that latex will automatically put the hyphen in there if it "sees" the references in numerical order, but this is not happening here. i'm just getting commas. How do I get that hyphen in there without manually coding it, without bibtex, and without any other packages? (is this even possible?)

[josephwright]

The LaTeX \cite command just can't do "compressed" citations, sorry. Hence the cite package (which makes only a few changes to how \cite works). If you really don't want to load cite for some reason (you don't say why you can't use a package), then you can either:
- Copy the relevant parts of cite into you file
- Do the citation by hand

Sorry that this is probably not what you wanted to hear.
--
Joseph Wright