[metapost] Difference between "mpost file.mp" and "mpost ./file.mp"

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi all,

On 09/10/2010 08:41 AM, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> On 09/09/2010 08:47 PM, Dan Luecking wrote:
>> At 07:07 AM 9/9/2010, you wrote:
>>> Dear list
>>>
>>> When using the TEX module to typeset labels in a for loop, I
>>> accidentally discovered that there is a difference between calling
>>> mpost as "mpost -tex=latex file.mp" and "mpost -tex=latex
>>> ./file.mp". In the former case, the labels come out as expected,
>>> whereas in the latter, I only get 0's. Is this documented or expected?
>>> I can see that the latter produces more output to the terminal as
>>> well, although I can't figure out what it means.
>>
>> I get the same result (MetaPost 1.211 from TeXLive 2010 pretest).
>>
>> Perhaps it is a function of security settings. It would appear that
>> mpost is not overwriting mptextmp.mpx. Thus only the first one that
>> was created (containing code to produce 0) is used repeatedly.
>
> It could be a file time issue. Which platform are you on?

It seems this was indeed the case. There is a fix in the metapost
source repository for those that are interested in compiling a new
metapost binary themselves.

For everybody else: I expect to release metapost 1.212 within a month
from now, and of course the fix will be included in that release.
Until then, Dan suggested introducing a time-wasting loop as a
workaround.

Best wishes,
Taco