Programmatically converting/parsing LaTeX code to plain text

Question

I have a couple of code projects in C++/Python in which LaTeX-format descriptions and labels are used to generate PDF documentation or graphs made using LaTeX+pstricks. However,

Answer 1

Necroing this old thread, but found this nifty library called pylatexenc that seems to do almost exactly what the OP was after:

from pylatexenc.latex2text import LatexNodes2Text


LatexNodes2Text().latex_to_text(r"""\
\section{Euler}
\emph{This} bit is \textbf{very} clever:
\begin{equation}
    \mathrm{e}^{i \pi} + 1 = 0  % wow!!
\end{equation}
where
\[
\mathrm{e} = \lim_{n \to \infty} \left(1 + \frac{1}{n}\right)^n
\]
""")

which produces

§ EULER

This bit is very clever:

    e^i π + 1 = 0

where

    e = lim_n →∞(1 + 1/n)^n

As you can see, the result is not perfect for the equations, but it does a great job of stripping and converting all the tex commands.