[twg-tds] storing scripts in the texmf tree

Thomas Esser te at dbs.uni-hannover.de
Sun Feb 8 16:07:08 CET 2004


>     I think that such script files deserve their place in the texmf tree.
> 
> And not in bin/arch?
> 
> The problem with having script directories, whether per-language or
> per-package, is that then all those directories have to be added to
> PATH.  It seems simpler for the user to just put them in bin/arch, even
> though it is exactly the same file in every directory.

People always have the freedom not to use the texmf tree for scripts,
that's perfectly fine. The way I (and Hans and Fabrice) use scripts
in texmf trees is to have wrappers in bin/arch.

E.g. for contex's files (texexec, texutil etc.) we have a wrapper in
bin/arch that execute
  what=`echo $0 | sed 's at .*/@@'`
  perl `kpsewhich -progname=context -format='other text files' $what.pl` "$@"

So, texexec will execute perl with texexec.pl, texutil will execute perl
with texutil.pl, etc.

The reason for keeping the scripts in texmf and not in bin/arch is
maintenance, not something technical.

Thomas


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