solrub

Build the student, solution and rubric PDFs of a LaTeX assignment.

One .tex source carries all three copies. \sol marks what only the answer key shows and \rub what only the grading rubric shows; each copy is a pdflatex run defining a different subset of them.

pip install solrub

Use

solrub quiz1a              # quiz1a.pdf, quiz1a_sol.pdf, quiz1a_rub.pdf
solrub quiz1*              # every version at once
solrub quiz1/              # every document in a folder
solrub --no-sol --no-rub blank

All three copies are the default; --no-sol and --no-rub opt out.

Arguments are files, globs or directories, with the .tex suffix optional. Globs are expanded by the tool rather than left to the shell, so quiz1* works the same on Windows. Two filters keep a wide pattern honest: sibling builds (quiz1a.pdf, quiz1a_sol.pdf) collapse onto the .tex they came from, and a fragment with no \documentclass is skipped.

The pdflatex transcript is hidden, leaving one line per document:

==> quiz1a.tex
    quiz1a.pdf  quiz1a_sol.pdf  quiz1a_rub.pdf

A failure prints the error pdflatex reported and keeps that document's .log, but does not stop the rest of the batch; the failures are listed at the end and the exit status is non-zero. -v restores the full transcript.

Counting points

-p sums the points per problem, using sum-pts: pip install "solrub[pts]".

solrub -p quiz1a

The default expects a bracket at the front of a \prob{...} title, and reads both spellings:

\prob{[20 pts (8, 12)]: Bayes Net}
\prob{[16 points (4 pts each)]: Ecology System}

If that is not your convention, a [points] table in a solrub.toml at your repo root overrides it for every document underneath. The keys are sum-pts' own parameters, so its documentation is the reference:

[points]
prefix = ' *\\question'
points = '(marks|pts?)'

When the patterns do not fit, solrub says so and links to docs/points.md, which explains each key and the traps. Points are read from the source, so -p still reports on a document that failed to build.

In the document

Three macros divide the source. \sol and \rub are hidden by default and revealed by their own build; \stud is the reverse, student-only content such as the blank space left for the work, dropped from both keys.

\newcommand{\sol}[1]{}
\newcommand{\rub}[1]{}
\newcommand{\stud}[1]{#1}

\ifdefined\showsol
  \renewcommand{\sol}[1]{#1}
  \renewcommand{\stud}[1]{}
\fi

\ifdefined\showrub
  \renewcommand{\rub}[1]{#1}
  \renewcommand{\stud}[1]{}
\fi

\stud{\vfill}
\sol{The boundary is $x = 3$.}
\rub{6 pts: correct slope.  3 pts if the intercept is off.}

The flags solrub defines are \showsol and \showrub, deliberately not \sol and \rub. A document cannot both define a macro and ask whether it is defined: \newcommand{\sol} would make \ifdefined\sol true on every build, so the student copy would silently print the answers.

Requires

pdflatex on the PATH, and Python 3.9 or newer.