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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Kirill Balunov wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CABwCVQAbNyb2Z++z5=rFXyaiV3AD6oY43eycd+rJ5un_Scf=+A@mail.gmail.com">
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<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">Maybe I incorrectly described in what, in my opinion, TeX Live can better.
<span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">I fully ok with the removal of 8.3 names support,
<span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">their time has passed.
<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">But
as for the directory separator, I would like to TeXLive (on Windows) to be as agnostic as possible, for two reasons:</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">1.
It works in some parts, but not in the others.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">2.
No error is produced.<br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">Concerning
the 1. as I showed in the example it is ok to use both <span style="font-family:courier
new,monospace">
<span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title=""><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-">-output-directory=".\Tex\local"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
and <span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title=""><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-">-output-directory="./Tex/local"<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">,
but this does not work for input files ( <span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en">
<span title="">this is obviously perceived as an existing possibility, but to some extent not coordinated in various places</span></span>).
<span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en">
<span title="" class="gmail-">Maybe I completely do not understand what difficulties are on the way.</span></span> If so I would like to know what they are.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title=""><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title=""><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">Why
I <span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en">
<span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title=""><span class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-m_6724498004672345221gmail-"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en"><span title="" class="gmail-">am</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
so concerned :) because many cross-platform libraries and utilities that work with paths (directories) use platform dependent directory separators (and usually the user has no control over this).</span></span> And this miss in the TeXLive functionality in
some parts, breaks their lovely attempts. <span class="gmail-tlid-translation
gmail-translation" lang="en">
<span title="" class="gmail-">Of course it is not difficult at the end to replace every
<span style="font-family:courier
new,monospace">
"\"</span> with <span style="font-family:courier
new,monospace">
"/"</span>, but it looks pretty crazy to do this for program running on Windows. And of course it is a very hard to find bug, because no error is produced.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br>
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The problem is simply that TeX's escape character is the same as MS-DOS's path-element separator (a backslash). Once that is accepted, it is clear that TeX cannot of itself unambiguously parse (e.g.,) "TeX \string\filename.extension. It cannot know whether
"string" is a command or a path element. Therefore a rule has to be implemented, and that rule is "TeX commands take precedence" — wherever "\string" occurs in a context where it could represent a command and could also represent a path element, it will
invariably be parsed as a command.<br>
<br>
Philip Taylor<br>
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