[tex-live] texlive/metapost btex ... etex bug

[Dare Afolabi]

I have a bunch of files that used to run without error a few years ago when "verbatimtex" was operative. I wanted to use those files again, but they don't compile anymore. I eventually tracked down the problem to metapost's seeming inability to simply place a letter at a given point. The code shown below fails to compile, with metapost giving the same "Unable to make mpx file" error others have encountered when using "btex ... etex" in different circumstances. Whatever changes that have been made in replacing verbatimtex with TEXPRE appear to be backward incompatible. What's the work around? 


Here's the code (in file test.mp), followed by the error log on debian and ubuntu distributions. 


%========= begin metapost code ======== 
prologues:=3; 
outputtemplate:="%j-%2d.mps"; 
input TEX; 
TEXPRE("%&latex" & char(10) & "\documentclass{article}\begin{document}"); 
TEXPOST("\end{document}"); 
beginfig(1); 
label.bot(btex $A$ etex, (60,50)); 
endfig; 
end 
%========== end metapost code ======== 


=========begin metapost error log =========== 


[metapost]$ mpost test 
This is MetaPost, version 1.504 (kpathsea version 6.1.0) 
(mpost.mp (/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/metapost/base/plain.mp 
Preloading the plain mem file, version 1.004)) (./test.mp 
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/metapost/base/TEX.mp)fatal: Command failed: latex 
--parse-first-line --interaction=nonstopmode mpRWGT5V.tex; see mpxerr.log 
>> test.mp 
>> test.mpx 
! Unable to make mpx file. 
l.7 label.bot(btex 
$A$ etex, (60,50)); 
Transcript written on test.log. 
[metapost]$ 


========= end metapost error log ======== 
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