Xrfgtjtk

Is there some package providing a simple user interface to return the counter value (numeric, not the formatted cross-reference, as ref does) of a label? It seems neither zref, not refcount, nor cleveref, among others, provide it. cleveref saves the counter value to the aux file, but I couldn't find in the docs a macro to retrieve it (something like, say, numbercref), even if internally there is a cref@getcounter for that.

Please, note I'm not asking how to do it, just if there is a package with a simple user interface.

I have written crossreftools about one year ago, this package extracts information from cleveref labels with crtcrefnumber, this holds the number of the counter, using the special way how cleveref stores the information in its labels.

Traditional labels do not support this, since those labels apply thefoo, meaning that something like renewcommand{thefoo}{arabic{chapter}.Roman{section}.Alph{foo}} will store 4.II.C, for example. This way crtrefnumber will report the usual reference value but not the counter value of foo, 3 in the above example.

Most crt... macros are expandable.

The zref package is very sophisticated, but it does not provide means to store the counter value -- the counter name is quite easy to catch, by loading the counter module of zref, see a possible solution with zref at the end, however.

In order to achieve this a new property must be defined, with zref@newprop and later added to the main property list with zref@addprop.

In total, crossreftools is not invasive as it just reevaluates the already stored label macros, whereas the second solution changes refstepcounter (marginally, however). If more information is to be stored with within labels, zref is most likely the better way to pursue.

documentclass{book}





usepackage{cleveref}

usepackage{crossreftools}



begin{document}



See crtrefnumber{foosec} or crtcrefnumber{foosec}



chapter{Foo}



setcounter{section}{99}



section{A foo section} label{foosec}



end{document}

Update

Here is version with zref, that stores the name of the last counter being used in refstepcounter and extracts the value with zlabels then.

documentclass{book}



usepackage[user,counter]{zref}



setcounter{secnumdepth}{4}



makeatletter

AtBeginDocument{%

  letoriginalrefstepcounterrefstepcounter%

  renewcommand{refstepcounter}[1]{%

    xdef@@lastrefsteppedcounter{#1}%

    originalrefstepcounter{#1}%

  }

}



zref@newprop{value}[-100000]{numbervalue{@@lastrefsteppedcounter}}

zref@addprop{main}{value}

newcommand{counterref}[1]{%

  zref@extract{#1}{value}%

}

makeatother



usepackage{cleveref}

usepackage{crossreftools}



counterwithin{equation}{chapter}



% some helper macros in order to simplify demonstration of counter values



newcommand{foosectionnumber}{100}

newcommand{foosubsectionnumber}{20}

newcommand{foosubsubsectionnumber}{44}

newcommand{einsteinnumber}{1905}



newcommand{foofigurenumber}{2018}





begin{document}



newcommand{tableentryline}[2]{%

  tabularnewline

  #1 & #2 & crtrefnumber{#1} & crtcrefnumber{#1} & counterref{#1} tabularnewline

  tabularnewline

  hline

} 



begin{tabular}{lllll}

label & Expected value & verb!crtrefnumber! & verb!crtcrefnumber! & verb!counterref! tabularnewline

  hline

  tableentryline{foosec}{foosectionnumber} 

  tableentryline{foosubsec}{foosubsectionnumber} 

  tableentryline{foosubsubsec}{foosubsubsectionnumber} 

  tableentryline{einstein}{einsteinnumber}

  tableentryline{foofigure}{foofigurenumber}

end{tabular}





chapter{Foo}



setcounter{equation}{numexpreinsteinnumber-1}



setcounter{section}{numexprfoosectionnumber-1}



setcounter{figure}{numexprfoofigurenumber-1}





section{A foo section} label{foosec}zlabel{foosec}



setcounter{subsection}{numexprfoosubsectionnumber-1}

subsection{A foo subsection} label{foosubsec} zlabel{foosubsec}



setcounter{subsubsection}{numexprfoosubsubsectionnumber-1}



subsubsection{A foo subsubsection} label{foosubsubsec} zlabel{foosubsubsec}



begin{equation}

  E= mc^{2} label{einstein} zlabel{einstein}

end{equation}



begin{figure}

  caption{foofigure} label{foofigure} zlabel{foofigure}

end{figure}



end{document}

Update again

Something like (see Javier Bezos' comment below)

setcounter{foo}{crtcrefnumber{foostuff}}

will fail since crtcrefnumber reports [UNDEFINED] in the beginning, i.e. the first run. This breaks setcounter of course

Therefore I have added a new macro that is designed for a 'safe' counter value, i.e.
crtcrefcountervalue that reports the content of crtcrefundefinedcountervalue, being 1977 (the year TeX was invented ;-)).

I added this code to the package (without the makeatletter...makeatother pair of course) and will uploaded a new version of crossreftools to CTAN.

makeatletter

newcommand{crt@crefundefinedcountervalue}{1977}

newcommand{crtrefundefinedcountervalue}[1]{renewcommand{crt@refundefinedcountervalue}{#1}}





newcommand{crtcrefcountervalue}[1]{%

  crtcrefifundefinedlabel{#1}{%

    crt@crefundefinedcountervalue%

  }{%

    crtcrefnumber{#1}%

  }%

}

makeatother

Update 2019/01/06 21:04 (CET)

crossreftools v0.9 is available on TeXLive (and most likely on MikTeX as well...)