kpathsea problem (990607)

[Staszek Wawrykiewicz]

Fabrice Popineau wrote:
> I have been able to reproduce your problem, so I have put another :
>
> ftp://ftp.ese-metz.fr/pub/tex/win32-beta/kpathsea-990608.dll

Great! Now it works. Many thanks, Fabrice.

Let's resume the problem for other people from the list.
0. Windows 95 (it seems NT behaves differently).
1. TL4 cannot be started directly from the CD if someone sets only the PATH
   to binaries. Try:
     kpsewhich --expand-var=$TEXMF
    or
     kpsewhich latex.fmt
   nothing is returned with the original kpathsea.dll.
   To cure it, 2 more variables should be set: TEXMFMAIN and TEXMFCNF.
   (or c:\tex\texmf\web2c\ can be build and a copy of texmf.cnf
   in such exact directory should be modified by hand).
2. Testbed for a new kpathsea.dll from Fabrice:
   -- a disk which can simulate CD, say H: (using subst is not a good idea)
   -- H:\bin\win32\   binaries from TL4, the new kpathsea.dll
      H:\texmf\web2c\ a copy of the same from the CD
   -- PATH=H:\bin\win32;%PATH%
   -- more variables concerning TeX and friends are _not_ set
   -- there is no C:\tex\texmf directory
   -- mktexlsr (builds H:\texmf\ls-R)
   -- set KPATHSEA_DEBUG_OUTPUT=foo.log
       (not yet documented; Fabrice, thanks for a hint)
   kpsewhich --expand-var=$TEXMF --debug=-1
      {c:\staw/texmf,H://texmf-local,!!H://texmf-var,!!H://texmf}
    my HOME (ignored),   ignored,         ignored,      existent

  double slashes are still displayed but the whole things works:
     kpsewhich latex.fmt
     h:/texmf/web2c/latex.fmt
Success! Again many thanks for Fabrice for his battle with such inpredictable
system.

Staszek Wawrykiewicz
email: staw@gust.org.pl