[tex-live] texmf/fmtutil

[Norbert Preining]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007, Karl Berry wrote:
> I can see that, but it doesn't mean we need the fmtutil/ directory or
> the BuildFormat TPM:Execute's.  We should just have an attribute
> declaring "this-is-a-format" in the package description for your stuff
> to read.  That's all you need (in principle), right?

In principle yes, but there are several points:
1 one tpm can create several formats like latex (produces latex,
  pdflatex), xetex, context, ...
2 the format lines cannot be deduced from this

So what I do when packaging is that if I find a tpm file declaring a
BuildFormat entry "foobar", I take the format.foobar.cnf file, add it to
the to be activated formats. Then I extract the active (ie uncommented)
formats and call fmtutil-sys --byfmt $foo.

Now, if all the infrastructure above is gone I have the following
problems:
ad 1. how do I know which formats should be build, the tpm names have no
relation to the formats to be build
ad 2. extracting the correct fmtutil.cnf lines

ad 2. could be made by some grep magic in the shipped fmtutil.cnf file,
but this way it would be simpler.

> Not that we should make this change now, of course.

I am open, if we kill it I will find a way around it for Debian, no
problem. But please after 2006/7.

Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at>                    Università di Siena
Debian Developer <preining at debian.org>                         Debian TeX Group
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