[tex-live] Bad .cfg files in TeX source tree?

[Heiko Oberdiek]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 08:06:50PM +0000, Jonathan Kew wrote:

> On 19 Jan 2007, at 3:00 pm, Heiko Oberdiek wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 02:00:31PM +0000, Jonathan Kew wrote:
> >
> >>Packages like this that test the engine and configure their back-end
> >>accordingly need to be updated to support xetex; in many cases, this
> >>will just mean checking for the xetex engine (e.g. using ifxetex.sty)
> >>and activating the same code as for pdftex. I haven't had time to
> >>pursue this with all the package maintainers, though (and until xetex
> >>became part of mainstream distributions, the incentive to support it
> >>in standard packages wasn't so strong, either).
> >
> >But TeX Live is a mainstream distribution, isn't it?
> 
> Indeed, and so I hope that support will now become much better  
> organized and integrated.
> 
> >
> >>The .cfg files in the xelatex tree were created as a workaround to
> >>get xetex-unaware packages to use the right (pdftex-like) back-end;
> >
> >Then at least try finding another workaround.
> >Otherwise there will be lots of bug reports, eg.:
> 
> In practice, this may not be as likely as you'd think:
> 
> >\documentclass{article}
> >\usepackage{geometry}
> >\usepackage{hyperref}% assumes now that pdfTeX is running in PDF mode
> 
> ...except that there's a hyperref.cfg in the xelatex subtree, which  
> overrides this and chooses the right back-end for xetex. :)

If no option is given, hyperref first checks for detectable TeX
engines. Since version v6.75o this includes XeTeX.
However \pdfoutput is available and enabled, thus hyperref thinks
pdfTeX is running in PDF mode. I doesn't can imagine that pdfTeX
and XeTeX are running together ;-)
  Then if hyperref knows the driver, \Hy at defauldriver isn't asked
any more.

If the update for geometry and crop fails, then at least
the fooling could be reverted, e.g.:

% geometry.cfg:
\newcommand{\SavedGeometryPdfoutput}{}
\let\SavedGeometryPdfoutput\pdfoutput
\AtEndOfPackage{%
  \let\pdfoutput\SavedGeometryPdfoutput
}
\newcount\pdfoutput
\pdfoutput=1\relax

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek at uni-freiburg.de>