[OS X TeX] Using \usepgfplotslibrary{external}

Thu Aug 4 16:35:35 CEST 2016

> On 04 Aug 2016, at 16:20, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Aug 4, 2016, at 9:09 AM, Martin Bergren <martin.berggren at cs.umu.se> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> On 04 Aug 2016, at 15:57, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Aug 4, 2016, at 7:56 AM, Martin Bergren <martin.berggren at cs.umu.se> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 04 Aug 2016, at 14:52, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Aug 4, 2016, at 7:22 AM, Martin Bergren <martin.berggren at cs.umu.se> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I would like to be able to use
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> \usepgfplotslibrary{external}
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> for pgfplots, which apparently should be able to store the pgfplots or tikz figures as pdfs to shorten latexing time. The problem seem to be write18. 
>>>>>> Is there a way around it?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Martin Berggren
>>>>> 
>>>>> Howdy,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Assuming you are using TeXShop:
>>>>> 
>>>>> One thing you can use is the sepdflatexmk engine. This is set up to use latexmk so that all processing through bibtex/biber and makeindex is taken care of if necessary and the pdflatex has the --shell-escape flag set. To use it simply place the line
>>>>> 
>>>>> % !TEX TS-program = sepdflatexmk
>>>>> 
>>>>> at the top of your file and then typeset the document by simply using Typeset->Typeset (Cmd-T).
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> But this is not a bibtex/biber and makeindex issue. This is about pgfplots,  which I think is running (in my case) lualatex in the background to produce the plots.
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> Martin Berggren
>>> 
>>> Howdy,
>>> 
>>> If it's really using lualatex you need to somehow have it load the luatex85 package and the shellesc package under lualatex. I don't know if your initial file is run under lualatex but you might try to include
>>> 
>>> \ifx\directlua\@undefined
>>> \else
>>> \RequirePackage{luatex85}
>>> \RequirePackage{shellesc}
>>> \fi
>>> 
>>> before the \documentclass command. Otherwise you need to see how to have that included in the lualatex call.
>>> 
>>> I think tikz-fct uses gnuplot and, assuming you have gnuplot in your PATH, using the shell escape provided by the sepdflatexmk engine should do the job.
>> 
>> No, luatex is not the issue (same problem with pdftex), and I don’t think this is a gnuplot issue either. The error I get is the following:
>> 
>> Package tikz Error: Sorry, the system call 'lualatex -halt-on-error -interact
>> ion=batchmode -jobname "portoptreport1-figure0" "\def\tikzexternalrealjob{porto
>> ptreport1}\input{portoptreport1}"' did NOT result in a usable output file 'port
>> optreport1-figure0' (expected one of .pdf:.jpg:.jpeg:.png:). Please verify that
>> you have enabled system calls. For pdflatex, this is 'pdflatex -shell-escape'.
>> Sometimes it is also named 'write 18' or something like that. Or maybe the com
>> mand simply failed? Error messages can be found in 'portoptreport1-figure0.log'
>> . If you continue now, I'll try to typeset the picture. 
>> 
>> That’s why I in my first post said that it seems to be a write18 issue. To me it seems like lualatex (or pdflatex)  is supposed to run as a system command to produce the picture files. 
>> 
>> (The point with the  \usepgfplotslibrary{external} command is that tikz and pgfplot should not need to interpret the figures each time but instead produce a pdf-file, save it to a subdirectory, and use that in order to speed up the process).
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Martin Berggren
> 
> Howdy,
> 
> Pretty confusing message. It says it can't get output from a lulatex command (which doesn't contain --shell-escape --- and even then it would need to include those packages since luatex in TL2016 does system calls through a different mechanism, hence the addition of the luatex85 and shellesc packages) and then talks about pdflatex --shell-escape. The sepdflatex engine in TeXShop does call pdflatex with --shell-escape but has no control over any internal call to lualatex.
> 
> I'd suggest putting the question on Stack Exchange, <http://tex.stackexchange.com <http://tex.stackexchange.com/>>, which is monitored by many experienced folks.

As I understand it, it is only a few system commands that are allowed through \write18{}, namely those explicitly listed in /usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf, which is 

shell_escape_commands = \
bibtex,bibtex8,\
extractbb,\
gregorio,\
kpsewhich,\
makeindex,\
mpost,\
repstopdf,\

I tried to set shell_escape = a in my local texmf.cnf file, but that does not work either. It is regarded a security issue, it seems. 

Cheers,  

Martin Berggren
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Department of Computing Science, Umeå Universitet
Campustorget 5, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden. Ph: +46-70-732 8111
http://www.cs.umu.se/~martinb <http://www.cs.umu.se/~martinb>, Martin.Berggren at cs.umu.se <mailto:Martin.Berggren at cs.umu.se>

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