EqFix: Fixing LaTeX Equation Errors by Examples

TL;DR

EqFix is a system that automatically repairs LaTeX equation errors by synthesizing fixing rules from examples, significantly improving repair success and efficiency over existing methods.

Contribution

The paper introduces EqFix, a novel synthesis-based system for repairing LaTeX equations using automatically generated fixing rules from input-output examples.

Findings

EqFix can synthesize rules with high generalization ability.

It solves 37% more cases than a state-of-the-art string transformer.

It requires less than half the synthesis time of existing methods.

Abstract

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.