[tex-live] texdoc: complain_about_old_envvar

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Sun Aug 24 00:12:39 CEST 2008


Heiko Oberdiek writes:
 > Hello,
 > 
 > texdoc now complains, if an older environment variable is used.
 > This warning is quite annoying, especially, if also the new
 > variables are used.
 >   Different texdoc versions require different environment variables,
 > thus the old variables must be set if several versions are in use.
 > I think, texdoc should only complain, when an old environment
 > variable is really used, e.g.:
 > 
 >   PDFVIEWER_texdoc=xpdf %s &
 >   TEXDOCVIEW_pdf=xpdf %s &
 > 
 > currently generates the warning:
 > 
 > | texdoc warning: Environment variable TEXDOCVIEW_pdf deprecated. See the
 > | manual
 > |         section ?.?, ?.? for details.
 > 
 > But the use of PDFVIEWER_texdoc shows that the user has read the
 > manual and knows the new name. Therefore it's a bug that a warning
 > is generated in this case.

Exactly.  And even if people didn't read the manual and the old
settings don't work anymore, there is no need to warn them explicitly.
I think that if people are unable to look into the manual at this
point, nobody can help them anyway.

One thing could be improved though: texdoc --help should either
describe the env vars or point people to the manual.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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