[tex-live] TeX Live Installer -- pregeneration of formats

[Reinhard Kotucha]

Frank Küster writes:
 > Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha at web.de> wrote:
 > 
 > >  > I guess that this saves you from the weirdness we had with jadetex and
 > >  > friends?
 > >
 > > Not really, format files *have* to be created either during installation
 > > or later.  Since many poeple asked for it, there is a new installer
 > > option now which allows you to change the default paper size from A4
 > > to letter.  Some format files have to be re-created then.
 > 
 > Ah, which of them?  

texconfig changes entries in various config files.  pdftex reads its
config file when the format is built.  Thus, formats which depend on
pdftex have to be re-created.

 > Will "texconfig paper letter" not do the right thing, and if not
 > what would I have to change to make it work?

Yes, it works as expected.  It creates the format files if necessary.

 > I don't think changes are necessary for TL-2008.

Good to hear!

 > > When we port fmtutil to texlua, we certainly stumble across this
 > > issue.  We could discuss it with Sebastian, but in my opinion it's
 > > the wrong approach.  Since what Sebastian did is correct, I think that
 > > a new version of fmtutil should calculate dependencies.  
 > 
 > That would definitely be the cleanest approach. I don't know how we
 > could do that without changing the semantics of fmtutil.cnf, though.

 > > I don't know
 > > what the current version of fmtutil does but I have not enough time to
 > > reverse-engineer.
 > 
 > AFAIK it just works through fmtutil.cnf line by line. If there are two
 > lines for the same format, it is created twice and the second wins.

A texlua version will most likely *not* work the same way as the shell
scripts because we want to make use of the features texlua offers.
Especially tables (associative lists) are a powerful concept which
makes it more easy to determine such dependencies.

A stupid question: is the version of texdoc.tlu in the TeX Live
repository up-to-date?  If yes, I hope that I misunderstand the code.

  -- [[ override hardcoded variables with values from texmf.cnf ]]
  rmfile_command = set_var_from_texmf(rmfile_command,'TEXDOC_RMFILE')
  rmdir_command = set_var_from_texmf(rmdir_command,'TEXDOC_RMDIR')

There is only one texmf.cnf file for all platforms, including
Windows.  You cannot set TEXDOC_RMFILE in texmf.cnf any more.  This
should be hard-coded in your script:
 
     if (os.type == "windows") then ....

My proposal:

  * Set reasonable defaults for Unix and Windows in your script.

  * Look for a config file in $TEXMFHOME.

There is no way anymore to put platform dependent stuff into
texmf.cnf.  This limitation was necessary in order to provide a new
feature:  You can install TeX Live 2008 on a server and mount it on
various clients.  In the past this worked perfectly for Unix clients
only, but now it works for Windows clients too.

A config file in TEXMFHOME would be a nice thing.  IMO it's
unavoidable.  And I don't see any reason to have anything texdoc
related in texmf.cnf.

It's quite late for significant changes in TeX Live 2008 but I'm very
interested in the texlua version of texdoc.  Unless I misunderstand
the code in the repository I fear that it doesn't work.

If you have any questions, let's disscuss them by private mail.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-3373112
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