EqFix: Fixing LaTeX Equation Errors by Examples
This addresses a specific issue for LaTeX users, particularly in academia, by automating error correction, though it is incremental as it builds on existing synthesis techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of fixing LaTeX equation errors by developing EqFix, a synthesis-based repairing system that uses rules derived from examples, resulting in solving 37% more cases and reducing synthesis time by over half compared to a state-of-the-art method.
LaTeX is a widely-used document preparation system. Its powerful ability in mathematical equation editing is perhaps the main reason for its popularity in academia. Sometimes, however, even an expert user may spend much time fixing an erroneous equation. In this paper, we present EqFix, a synthesis-based repairing system for LaTeX equations. It employs a set of fixing rules and can suggest possible repairs for common errors in LaTeX equations. A domain-specific language is proposed for formally expressing the fixing rules. The fixing rules can be automatically synthesized from a set of input-output examples. An extension of relaxers is also introduced to enhance the practicality of EqFix. We evaluate EqFix on real-world examples and find that it can synthesize rules with high generalization ability. Compared with a state-of-the-art string transformation synthesizer, EqFix solved 37% more cases and spent less than half of their synthesis time.