why is the directory trimmed from my path argument in includegraphics?

Question

Hi community I have a weird problem. It seems that includegraphics won't accept the entire argument, it always trims off the directory part!

The argument was manipulated and concatenated in another command before passing to the concerned command. But \typeout the argument shows that the argument contains correct string. What happened!?

A MWE:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames,svgnames,table]{xcolor}

\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{xstring}

\newcommand{\setInset}[6]{%
    \expandafter\gdef\csname useInset#1\endcsname{1}%
    \expandafter\gdef\csname inset#1Color\endcsname{#2}%
    \expandafter\gdef\csname crop#1X\endcsname{#3}%
    \expandafter\gdef\csname crop#1Y\endcsname{#4}%
    \expandafter\gdef\csname crop#1W\endcsname{#5}%
    \expandafter\gdef\csname crop#1H\endcsname{#6}%
}

\newcommand{\addInset}[2]{%
    \color{#2}%
    \typeout{OMG #1}
    \fbox{\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{{#1}}}%
}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\addInsets}[2][1]{%
    \filename@parse{#2}
    \StrSubstitute{\filename@base.\filename@ext}{.}{-}[\tmpName]
    \def\baseFileName{\filename@area\tmpName}
            % setting \cropfile manually works! e.g.
            % \def\cropfile{figures/lr_img_053-png-19.25x19.25+176.5+123.75}
            \def\cropfile{\baseFileName-19.25x19.25+176.5+123.75} 
            \addInset{\cropfile.png}{\insetAColor} % works if I hardcode \addInset{figures/\cropfile.png}

}
\makeatother


\begin{document}
    \begin{figure}\centering
            \setInset{A}{red}{176.5}{123.75}{19.25}{19.25}
            \addInsets{figures/lr_img_053.png}
    \end{figure}
\end{document}

Calling \mycommand{red}{figures/figure.png} always gives me error Not found.

Answer 1

\includegraphics uses \filename@parse internally. Because you used \def\cropfile instead of \edef\cropfile, \baseFileName isn't expanded and depends on the value of \filename@area. \filename@parse inside \includegraphics overwrites the value of \filename@area before expanding the argument, so it sees the value of \filename@area it already reset instead of the value assigned by your \filename@parse in \addInsets.

So you can fix this like @Ian Thompson suggested by writing

\edef\cropfile{\baseFileName-19.25x19.25+176.5+123.75}

instead of

\def\cropfile{\baseFileName-19.25x19.25+176.5+123.75}

or by renaming your version of \filename@area:

\newcommand{\addInsets}[2][1]{%
    \filename@parse{#2}
    \let\myFileArea\filename@area % \edef could be used here too
    \StrSubstitute{\filename@base.\filename@ext}{.}{-}[\tmpName]
    \def\baseFileName{\myFileArea\tmpName}
    ...
}

Answer 2

I'm too tired to work out what's going on here, but the problem seems to go away if you change \def to \edef in

\def\cropfile{\baseFileName-19.25x19.25+176.5+123.75}