Using \verbatim as part of an argument for a macro?

Question

Most things I've wanted to do in LaTeX have either been straight-forward, or easily found on the web, but this one has been stumping me.

I have a macro 'solution': to apply some common formatting to each solution:

\newcommand\solution[1]{{\\ \\* \bf Solution.}#1\qed \newpage}

Which has worked nicely so far, but now I wanted to include a drawing which I've done quickly using 'ASCII Art' so I'd like to use \verbatim. But it doesn't work, it produces the following errors:

Runaway argument?
...
! File ended while scanning use of \@xverbatim.

From what I read in the "Not So Short introduction to LaTeX", \verbatim can't be used this way. I assume there is a better way to do what I'm trying to do?

Answer 1

This is a FAQ.

Answer 2

You could try changing \newcommand to \newenvironment and then use something like

\begin{solution}
  \begin{verbatim}
    [ascii art here]
  \end{verbatim}
\end{solution}