[OS X TeX] finding a file

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 14.08.2012 um 22:09 schrieb Nitecki, Zbigniew H.:

> So my question is: how do I access these various versions of calculus.bib, not via the useless Papers2 (which also fails to see them), but via TeXShop (where my editor lives)?

This has to do with Mac OS X Launch Services. You could for example select some BIB file in Finder and open the inspector (⌘-I). In it's lower part, maybe hidden and revealed by operating the black triangles, you can select an application in which the file should be opened. Choose TeXShop! Then set in the same inspector window this application as default for all such files.

> Or at least how do I locate them (as opposed to getting a report that they are somewhere in there)?

The Launch Services also allow to activate a locate background job. You need to be root for this or use sudo. Depending on how often the locate data base is rebuilt you could invoke 'locate <file name>' on the command line to receive a list of path names with that <file name.bin> in it.

Finally you can invoke

	kpsewhich --show-path=bib | tr : '\n' | sort

to see where TeX searches for BIB files. The first line, '.', means 'right here from where the command was started', meaning: when you put your BIB file in the same directory where your LaTeX source is, then it will be found first. Then follow paths to directories in your private area. You can put the BIB file into one of these directories and it will be found before TeX would start to search the system (the system paths start with '!!' which means that TeX does not really search but instead looks up the file name in the ls-R "hash files" built from the 'sudo mktexlsr' commands).

--
Greetings

  Pete

Who the fsck is "General Failure," and why is he reading my disk?