[lucida] [luatex] luatex hangs on lucida OT test file

[Bruno Voisin]

> Le 12 mars 2017 à 00:25, Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha at web.de> a écrit :
> 
> If you still have the setup I suggested, you can try this:
> 
>  * move the format files of the new version of LuaTeX to the
>    directory containing the binaries.  Make sure to copy the correct
>    ones.  If in doubt, generate them again.
> 
>  * put a texmf.cnf file into this directory containing the line:
> 
>        TEXFORMATS=$SELFAUTOLOC
> 
>    The new version of LuaTeX will then search in the directory
>    containing the new binaries only.  The original TeX Live (from
>    tug.org) will still search in its standard directories.
> 
>  * switch to the original TeX Live (from tug.org) and re-create
>    all formats again.
> 
>  * when the directory containing the new version of LuaTeX is in
>    PATH, *never* re-create any formats.  Maybe it's helpful to
>    disable fmtutil[-sys] and/or tlmgr so that you can't destroy
>    anything by accident.
> 
>    	chmod a-x fmtutil* tlmgr
> 
>    You can enable them temporarily if needed.

Thanks, Reinhard. What I've finally done is the following:

- Create inside /usr/local/texlive/2016/bin/dev-x86_64 a texmf.cnf containing

    TEXFORMATS = .;$SELFAUTOLOC;$TEXMF/web2c{/$engine,}

hoping that it would mean the formats are searched first in the current directory, then in the dev bin directory, then in the standard texmf-var.

- Move the .fmt files from texmf-var/web2c/luatex inside this bin directory.

- Switch to the original TeX Live and recreate the LuaTeX-based formats.

This seems to work: having selected the dev bin directory as the one of use, I was able to run both lualatex (for which the format is in the dir) and xelatex (for which the format is still in texmf-var).

Actually I think it's possible to create format files once in the new setup, should the need arise: you just need to specify the --fmtdir and add --no-engine-subdir to the arguments. Namely, I've ran 

    sudo fmtutil-sys --fmtdir /usr/local/texlive/2016/bin/dev-x86_64 --no-engine-subdir --byengine luatex

successfully.

But then, of course, that wouldn't work when tlmgr (TeX Live Utility on the Mac) rebuilds a format automatically after a package update.

So you would need to configure the fmtutil in the dev bin directory to use this --fmtdir together with --no-engine-subdir by default. I don't think fmtutil.cnf allows that.

Really, I don't think this all is worth the effort: I just made a rather rhetorical comment originally, about not being able to replace momentarily the binaries in TeX Live by newer development versions without touching the main  texlive tree. I had not at all given thought then, how this could be compatible with the texlive architecture.

Trying now, it just seems every time progress is made towards that direction, a new problem arises. There are just too many separate utilities in TeX Live, hence too many config files to set, too many variables to take into account, for everything to work transparently in the end. In any case, I can't possibly devote more time to the matter, unfortunately.

Bruno