[l2h] latex2html 99.1 TEXINPUTS problem (w/ patch)

[Ross Moore]

> I hope this address is valid for sending bug reports for
> latex2html. The one mentioned in the source file bounces
> (latex2html@mcs.anl.gov)..
> 
> 1) There should be a prominent note in the latex2html distribution
>    about where to send bug reports, and the wrong addres in latex2html
>    itself should be corrected.

Bug reports generally come to this list.
The list moved from  mcs.anl.gov  to  tug.org  .
Thanks for pointing out that some old pointers may still exist
in the distributed files.

 
> 2) the handling of `TEXINPUTS' in latex2html 99.1 is incorrect:
>    the contents of $ENV{TEXINPUTS} are not passed to texexpand, and
>    texexpand will fail due to looking in the wrong directories.

No. That is not correct.
The purpose of $ENV{TEXINPUTS} is for \input files for TeX.
LaTeX2HTML is *not* based on a TeX engine;
instead it uses alternative techniques to interpret high-level
LaTeX source. Low-level TeX source will almost certainly not work
and can cause meaningless results that will be quite inexplicable
to the average user.

If your input files have been carefully prepared to be safe with
LaTeX2HTML, then simply use the $TEXINPUTS Perl variable,
in the same way that you would use $ENV{TEXINPUTS} .


>    The mailing list archive did show some messages related to this,
>    none of which seemed to fix the real problem.

What do you perceive to be the problem ?

 
>    Proposed change: pass $ENV{'TEXINPUTS'} instead of $TEXINPUTS to
>    texexpand:

No. That has the potential to create more problems than it
is designed to solve.

Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore