[XeTeX] Overfull boxes return status of 0 in XeTeX

[Philip Taylor]

David Carlisle wrote:

> Philip Taylor <P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:

>> Also please consider the following text from Wikipædia :
> (Well from Wikipedia actually)
> 
> Yes the relevant part is
> 
>> On many systems, the higher the value, the more severe the
>> cause of the error.
> 
> so the status code should be 0 unless an error is reported.

I think we are arguing about semantics when we should be discussing
functionality; an overfull box /is/ an error, whether or not it results
in a TeX compilation being interrupted to solicit user input.

> I don't see why that would be a problem with an editor front end like texworks
> most of them run tex in scrollmode so they don't stop on errors as far
> as I can see.
> 
> I think that you are really approaching the problem from the wrong direction.
> editors hiding the console output is a problem but the fix should be that the
> editors don't do that. As we see on tex.sx all the time people don't even notice
> clear errors like undefined commands as they are using front ends that just
> force tex to get to the end and show the pdf that results.

But we are not discussing general front ends; we are discussing an
intelligent front end such as TeXworks that does /not/ conceal the log
file unless (a) the user has configured it so to do, or (b) it believes
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.

** Phil.