[tex-live] [bug] apparent pstricks and graphicx incompatibility in plain tex

[Heiko Oberdiek]

On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 05:16:04PM -0500, Christopher Genovese wrote:

> Running texlive 2010 on a Mac running OS X 10.5.8 to update some old
> documents
> (which were originally processed fine with texlive 2007).  But tex fails in
> running
> them in the new version.  The files use a format built on plain TeX.
> 
> I have reduce the problem to the following, using plain TeX only
> 
>  \input pstricks
> >  \input graphicx
> >
> >  \psset{unit=1pc}
> >
> >  \bye
> >
> 
> 
> This file produces the following error message:
> 
> ! xkeyval error: [ undefined.
> > \XKV at err #1->\errmessage {xkeyval error: #1}

> > \pss at t [#1]#2->\setkeys +[
> >                           psset]{#1}{#2}\ignorespaces
> > <*> \psset{unit=1pc}

pstricks has switched the key value processor to package xkeyval,
graphicx is using package keyval. Unhappily both packages use
the same command \setkeys, where xkeyval has introduced
a syntax extensions that are not recognized by keyval's version.
By the loading order package keyval is loaded last and overwrites
xkeyval's \setkeys.

Try:

\input pstricks
\let\savedsetkeys\setkeys
\input graphicx
\let\setkeys\savedsetkeys

\psset{unit=1pc}

\bye

> Either way, such a drastic change looks like a bug to me.

This isn't a bug, it's just plain TeX.
It's not an issue in LaTeX because of its package management system.

Yours sincerely
  Heiko Oberdiek