Latex - Apply an operation to every character in a string

Posted by hroest on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by hroest
Published on 2010-03-16T20:16:26Z Indexed on 2010/03/16 21:21 UTC
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Hi

I am using LaTeX and I have a problem concerning string manipulation. I want to have an operation applied to every character of a string, specifically I want to replace every character "x" with "\discretionary{}{}{}x". I want to do this because I have a long string (DNA) which I want to be able to separate at any point without hyphenation.

Thus I would like to have a command called "myDNA" that will do this for me instead of inserting manually \discretionary{}{}{} after every character.

Is this possible? I have looked around the web and there wasnt much helpful information on this topic (at least not any I could understand) and I hoped that you could help.

--edit To clarify: What I want to see in the finished document is something like this:


    the dna sequence is CTAAAGAAAACAGGACGATTAGATGAGCTTGAGAAAGCCATCACCACTCA
    AATACTAAATGTGTTACCATACCAAGCACTTGCTCTGAAATTTGGGGACTGAGTACACCAAATACGATAG
    ATCAGTGGGATACAACAGGCCTTTACAGCTTCTCTGAACAAACCAGGTCTCTTGATGGTCGTCTCCAGGT
    ATCCCATCGAAAAGGATTGCCACATGTTATATATTGCCGATTATGGCGCTGGCCTGATCTTCACAGTCAT
    CATGAACTCAAGGCAATTGAAAACTGCGAATATGCTTTTAATCTTAAAAAGGATGAAGTATGTGTAAACC
    CTTACCACTATCAGAGAGTTGAGACACCAGTTTTGCCTCCAGTATTAGTGCCCCGACACACCGAGATCCT
    AACAGAACTTCCGCCTCTGGATGACTATACTCACTCCATTCCAGAAAACACTAACTTCCCAGCAGGAATT

just plain linebreaks, without any hyphens. The DNA sequence will be one long string without any spaces or anything but it can break at any point. This is why my idea was to inesert a "\discretionary{}{}{}" after every character, so that it can break at any point without inserting any hyphens.

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