This argument makes writing many internal links more convenient, and it was notably introduced because it serves as the sane version of shorthand internal links.
If given e.g. as in:the link treated magically as follows:
= Internal reference
\x[Internal references]{magic}- content capitalization and pluralization are detected from the string, and implicitly set the
\xcargument and\xpargument. In the example:In this simple example, the content therefore will be exactly{c}capitalization is set becauseInternal referencesstarts with an upper case characterI{p}pluralization is set becauseInternal referencesends in a plural word
Internal referencesas in the source. But note that this does not necessarily need to be the case, e.g. if we had done:then the content would be:\x[Internal Reference]{magic}without capitalInternal referenceR, i.e. everything except capitalization and pluralization is ignored. This forgiving way of doing things means that writers don't need to remember the exact ideal capitalization of everything, which is very hard to remember.It also means that any more complex elements will be automatically rendered as usual, e.g. if we had:then the output would still contain the= \i[Internal] reference \x[internal reference]{magic}<i>italic tag.If we had a scope as in\x[my scope/Internal references], then each scope part is checked separately. E.g. in this case we would have upper caseInternal references, even thoughmy scopeis lowercase, and so{c}would be set. - the ID is calculated as follows:
- automatic ID from title conversion is performed, with you exception: forwards slashs
/are kept, in order to make scopes work.In our case, there aren't any slashes/, so it just givesinternal-references. But if instead we had e.g.:\x[my scope/internal reference]{magic}, then we would reachmy-scope/internal-referenceand notmy-scope-internal-reference. - if there is a match to an existing ID use it.
internal-referencesin the plural does not match, so go to the next step - if the above failed, try singularizing the last word as in the
\xpargument withp=0before doing automatic ID from title conversion. This givesinternal-reference, which does exist, and so we use that.
There may be some cases where you might still want to use internal link title inflection however, see: Section "Inflection vs magic".