[texworks] [XeTeX] Overfull boxes return status of 0 in XeTeX

[Philip Taylor]

mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Mar 2016, Philip Taylor wrote:
>> that no error has occurred.  All I am asking is that XeTeX be given the
>> option to inform TeXworks that an error has occurred when an overfull
>> box has been generated.
> 
> Why is this a XeTeX issue and not a TeXworks issue?

It is both.  I raised it first on the TeXworks list and the current
maintainer of TeXworks, Stefan Löffler, said :

> Whether the console is closed depends solely on the exit status code of
> the process that is doing the typesetting. It has nothing to do with the
> actual log output (or what scripts etc. do with it). If TeX exits with
> status code 0, the typeset run is considered a success, otherwise it's a
> failure.

Therefore I am raising it here.  It is not at all clear to me why there
appears to be such reluctance to consider a new command line parameter,

	--set-non-zero-status-on=<set of reserved keywords>

which could not only address the overfull boxes issue :

	--set-non-zero-status-on="overfull-boxes"

but also the point which Zdeněk has just raised (see below) :

	--set-non-zero-status-on="overfull-boxes, missing-glyphs"

> There is a more dangerous problem which returns with a zero code, namely missing characters. Try this XeLaTeX code:
> 
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{fontspec,bidi}
> \setmainfont[Script=Arabic]{FreeSans}
> \begin{document}
> \beginR مجھے
> \endR
> \end{document}
> 
> This is not even mentioned on the console, the user must read the log file. Overfull boxes make the output at least readable, missing characters present a serious problem.
> Zdeněk Wagner