[fptex] ConTeXt perl scripts failing on Win98

[George N. White III]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Fabrice Popineau wrote:

> So I wonder what's happening on your machine, but on a bare windows, it
> should just plain run. Any specific things to report about the software
> installed ?

Some simple tests on Win98:

C:\>perl -e "my $x=`c:/tl2003/bin/win32/kpsewhich story.tex`;print $x"
[no output]

C:\>perl -e "my $x=`c:\\tl2003\\bin\\win32\\kpsewhich story.tex`;print $x"
c:/TL2003/texmf/tex/plain/base/story.tex

C:\>perl -e "my $x=`kpsewhich story.tex`;print $x"
c:/TL2003/texmf/tex/plain/base/story.tex

"perldoc perlport" yields the following advice:

"System calls accept either / or \ as the path separator. However, many
command-line utilities of DOS vintage treat / as the option prefix, so may
get confused by filenames containing /. Aside from calling any external
programs, / will work just fine, and probably better, as it is more
consistent with popular usage, and avoids the problem of remembering what
to backwhack and what not to."  -- http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.8.0/\
pod/perlport.html#Interprocess-Communication-(IPC)

I guess backtick is "calling external programs".

When is is necessary to use explicit paths in backticks?  Why not insist
on a proper configuration at the outset rather than trying to
"make do" with a broken configuration?  The added complexity
increases chances for breakage and makes it harder to do things like
supporting spaces in filenames.

--
George N. White III  <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
  Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada