[tex-live] TL 2010 : Does XeLaTeX search for Emacs, and if so, why ?!

Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk
Mon Sep 6 11:34:39 CEST 2010



Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

> I don't think it makes much sense.  The point is that you never should
> rely on compile-time defaults.  TEXEDIT is a per-user variable and
> should always be set it the environment of a particular user.  In
> texmf.cnf this variable is deliberately not set for this reason and
> because there is only one texmf.cnf for all platforms.

OK, let me stop [you] there -- all that seems fine, /but/ :

1) The TeXlive Installer does not ask the user which editor
    he or she prefers to use (I think it should), and

2) In the absence of any editor being specified, the default
    action of the binary should be to report "No editor
    specified : please set TEXEDIT and re-run".

Both of these are IMHO, of course.  But there /may/, of course,
be security risks associated with executing an arbitrary piece
of code that just happens to be called "Emacs.exe", "Emacs.bat"
or whatever, as the calling code has no way of knowing whether
this is "real" Emacs or some nasty Trojan horse ...

** Phil.


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