[texhax] "tex project file collector" or anything alike?

[Niall Mansfield]

  > Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:22:43 +0200
  > From: ralph buse <ralph.buse at googlemail.com>
  > To: support at tug.org
  > Subject: [texhax] "tex project file collector" or anything alike?
  >
  > Hi folks,
  >
  > is there something like a "clean up" function which a) either deletes
  > all unused files in the main tex document's folder structure or, less
  > dangerous / drastic, b) collects all used files and creates a
  > mirror-directory somewhere containing only these?

Two suggestions:

1. The 'bundledoc' and 'snapshot' packages let you build an
   archive of all the LaTeX files needed in a run. 

   We've used these when we get a huge set of files
   (e.g. for a whole book) that are all over the place.
   Knowing exactly what's needed and what isn't make it easy
   to restructure the source into a more rational and
   maintainable structure, and usually all that's required
   is just editing a few pathnames here and there to accord
   with the more sensible structure.  (E.g. stuff like
	../../myworkingfile/temp/extras.tex
   changed to
	format/author-extras.tex
   )

   (If you really do mean TeX as opposed to LaTeX, I doubt
   these packages will help, though -- sorry.)


2. (related) We use a shell script 'newclean' that lets you
   remove specified sets of temporary files (tex stuff,
   emacs stuff, etc.) from the current directory.  It makes
   it easy to clear out rubbish without worrying too much
   that you are deleting something precious.  E.g.

   newclean -tex -extratex

   gets rid of all the tex rubbish that we don't want.  You
   can easily customize the script to your own needs.

	Niall