[tex-live] [XeTeX] Problem with XeTeX's (and perhaps other binaries -- not investigated) handling of --output-directory

[Philip Taylor]

Ulrike Fischer wrote:

> The output-directory is not only for output-files. XeTeX must also be
> able to read from this folder, e.g. a toc-file or an aux-file. And if
> there is (in a latex compilation) an (older) foo.aux in the current
> folder and a new foo.aux in /dynamic-content you would want it to
> find the newer one. 

Whether or not the file "foo.aux" in ../dynamic-content is newer,
it should be read in preference to the one in the current directory
because that is the defined behaviour when --output-directory=../dynamic-content

But the defined behaviour for :

	o xetex --output-directory=../dynamic-content E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Welcome/foo.tex

must /surely/ be to process E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Welcome/foo.tex, not E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Dynamic-content/foo.tex, which is what it does; the "texinputs" path does not come into this, since
an explicit directory has been given.  Furthermore, if both E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Welcome/foo.tex 
and E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Dynamic-content/foo.tex contain "\input E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Welcome/foo.aux", then E:/TeX/Projects/WBH/Welcome/foo.aux is indeed \input as specified (i.e., the value of "texinputs" is ignored (as it should be) because an explicit path to the file has been given).

Philip Taylor