[pdftex] Another request for an enhancement to pdf(La)TeX

[André Wobst]

Am 27.10.2010 um 01:01 schrieb Hartmut Henkel:
> But a larger problem seems to be to add to the existing .tex file kpse
> search heuristics a pipe mechanism.


Note that I did not request for such a change. You are right, it could be a worth discussion on how to improve handling of streamed output. However, in *nix systems you can create a named pipe (mkfifo) with the proper filename (\jobname.pdf) prior starting pdf(La)TeX and the output is passed to this fifo and can be consumed while the output is created. However, the process breaks at the first seek back in the file. (AFAIK you can create a similar named fifo on Windows systems as well, but I don't mind.)

To my understanding, I agree that the proposed change could be quite readable and might not need much code either. And it removes the need to seeking back in the file to a position, where some space was left for filling in the stream length before. It might be considered as getting rid of an ugly hack.

Although I would like to see this change being done in pdf(La)TeX (as it is mature and the tex processor I'm using for production systems at the moment and in the foreseeable future), I do accept the current statement that pdftex is too frozen to implement such a change. Still I regret that statement.

-- 
by  _ _      _    Dr. André Wobst, Amselweg 22, 85716 Unterschleißheim
   / \ \    / )   lists at wobsta.de, http://www.wobsta.de/
  / _ \ \/\/ /    PyX - High quality PostScript and PDF figures
 (_/ \_)_/\_/     with Python & TeX: visit http://pyx.sourceforge.net/