[tex-live] Building the "TeX in Practice" format and saving it in a sensible location

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Philip,

> [NP] This if fmtutil/mktexfmt [is used] which rightly writes to TEXMFVAR (or
> TEXMFSYSVAR if you use the -sys (or --sys) switch).
> 
>    OK, I  used neither of fmtutil/mktexfmt explicitly, but simply typed :
>      * XeTeX ^&texip

Yes, which calls mktexfmt which is an instance of fmtutil.
Automatic format generation is putting files in TEXMFVAR, that has to be
like this since TEXMFSYSVAR might be not writable, even on Windows with
admin install.

>    I have now tried using the "-sys" qualifier with XeTeX and see that it

Nobody told you so. The -sys works only for fmtutil and updmap.

>    is not recognised, and therefore "fmtutil" still tries to create a
>    format under c:/users/philip taylor.fujitsu-pc/.texlive2018/

Yes, this is correct and expected behaviour, and unchanged since Thomas
Esser introduced this distinction about 20+ years ago.

>    so it does not look (to me) as if on-the-fly format creation can be
>    instructed to save its results in a TEXMFSYS... tree.

Yes, it can, by setting
	TEXMFVAR
to the value of TEXMFSYSVAR or your preferred value in the texmf.cnf I
mentioned in my last email:

> [NP] put a file texmf.cnf into your TL root, and add there
>         TEXMFVAR = /wherever/you/want/it
> and at the same time do this also for
>         TEXMFCONFIG = ...


>    Well, I think I might reasonably reply that "it's a pity" that Unix
>    systems don't have a "HELP" command !  And how is it, in these days of

$ help what
bash: help: no help topics match `what'.  Try `help help' or `man -k what' or `info what'.
$ 

>    Political Correctness Gone Mad, that Unix systems have not moved with
>    the times and replaced "man" by "person" ?!

I never heard that "personalual" is an English word.

Best

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                               http://www.preining.info
Accelia Inc.     +    JAIST     +    TeX Live     +    Debian Developer
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