Xjyuk

I would like to have an enumerate list, with the numbers expressed in unary. That is, "1" would be represented as •, "3" as •••, and "8" as •••••|•••.

I'm able to print the dots already, and that's working fine:

newcommandxxdottextbullet % The dot character to use
newcounterloopcntr % A one-off counter for forloop

newcommandxxdots[1]% Print #1 dots in a row
 ifthenelse#1>5% If there are more than five, break them into groups
 xxdots5textpipexxdotsnumbernumexpr#1-5relax% By printing five, then a pipe, then the rest
 % Otherwise, just print that many dots
 forlooploopcntr0valueloopcntr<#1xxdot%
 %

newcommandxdots[1]textnormalxxdots#1 % Wrap it in textnormal style

However, I have no idea how to make enumerate use this. Based on this answer, I tried redefining theenumi:

renewcommandtheenumixdotsarabicenumi

But this went badly wrong:

! Illegal parameter number in definition of @currentlabel.
<to be read again> 
 1
l.376 ^^Iitem My text here ...
You meant to type ## instead of #, right?
Or maybe a } was forgotten somewhere earlier, and things
are all screwed up? I'm going to assume that you meant ##.

How can I apply my unary-printing code to the enumerate label?

EDIT: Based on this answer, I tried this:

newcommand*unary[1]expandafter@unarycsname c@#1endcsname
newcommand*@unary[1]xdotsthenumexpr#1relax

And it seems to work! As in, this produces the correct output:

newcountertest
setcountertest8
unarytest

However, the MWE still throws a bunch of errors.

MWE follows:

documentclassarticle

usepackageforloop
usepackagetipa
usepackage[T1]fontenc

newcommandxxdottextbullet % The dot character to use
newcounterloopcntr % A one-off counter for forloop

newcommandxxdots[1]% Print #1 dots in a row
 ifthenelse#1>5% If there are more than five, break them into groups
 xxdots5textpipexxdotsnumbernumexpr#1-5relax% By printing five, then a pipe, then the rest
 % Otherwise, just print that many dots
 forlooploopcntr0valueloopcntr<#1xxdot%
 %

newcommandxdots[1]textnormalxxdots#1 % Wrap it in textnormal style

makeatletter
newcommand*unary[1]expandafter@unarycsname c@#1endcsname
newcommand*@unary[1]xdotsthenumexpr#1relax
makeatother

%renewcommandtheenumiunaryenumi % This crashes and burns

begindocument

Unary works normally: xdots1, xdots3, xdots8.

It even works with a counter.

newcountertest
setcountertest8
unarytest

But in a list:

beginenumerate
 item My text here my text here
 item More text more text
 item Even more text
endenumerate

enddocument

The enumitem package is your friend. You can define a new list style, which I have called unerate, and then make this list style use your unary code. To achieve this it is enough to add the following lines to your code:

letrealItemitem
newcommandunerateItemrefstepcounterunerateirealItem[unaryuneratei]
usepackageenumitem
newlistunerateenumerate1
setlist[unerate]label=alph*, before=letitemunerateItem 

So this redefines item to be unerateItem and this, in turn, uses the "real" item with unary applied to the list environment counter, which is called uneratei. With this in place, the code

beginunerate
 item My text here my text here
 item More text more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
endunerate

produces:

Here is the full code:

documentclassarticle

usepackageforloop
usepackagetipa
usepackage[T1]fontenc

newcommandxxdottextbullet % The dot character to use
newcounterloopcntr % A one-off counter for forloop

newcommandxxdots[1]% Print #1 dots in a row
 ifthenelse#1>5% If there are more than five, break them into groups
 xxdots5textpipexxdotsnumbernumexpr#1-5relax% By printing five, then a pipe, then the rest
 % Otherwise, just print that many dots
 forlooploopcntr0valueloopcntr<#1xxdot%
 %

newcommandxdots[1]textnormalxxdots#1 % Wrap it in textnormal style

makeatletter
newcommand*unary[1]expandafter@unarycsname c@#1endcsname
newcommand*@unary[1]xdotsthenumexpr#1relax
makeatother

letrealItemitem
newcommandunerateItemrefstepcounterunerateirealItem[unaryuneratei]
usepackageenumitem
newlistunerateenumerate1
setlist[unerate]label=alph*, before=letitemunerateItem 

begindocument

 beginunerate
 item My text here my text here
 item More text more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 item Even more text
 endunerate

enddocument

You can now use enumitem to style these environments to your heart's content.

The code above will not let you nest unerate environments. If this is required let me know and I will update it - it's not difficult, but requires a little extra work.

I recycled this code and slightly extended it to get

documentclassarticle
usepackagepgffor
newcommandnbullets[2][textbullet]%
foreach X [evaluate=X as Y using int(mod(X,5))]in 1,...,#2
ifnumX>1%
ifnumY=1%
$vert$fi%
fi%
#1
begindocument
renewcommandlabelenuminbulletsvalueenumi
beginenumerate
 item first
 item second
 item third
 item fourth
 item fifth
 item sixth
 item seventh
 item last 
endenumerate

Nestable:
renewcommandlabelenumiinbullets[*]valueenumii
beginenumerate
 item first
 item second
 beginenumerate
 item a
 item b
 item c
 item d
 item e
 item f
 endenumerate
 item third
 item fourth
 item fifth
 item sixth
 item seventh
 item last 
endenumerate
enddocument