[texhax] Single-stepping through TeX

Karl Berry karl at freefriends.org
Mon Nov 21 00:15:17 CET 2011


(Since I am not on macosx-tex, and it rejects non-subscribers (a
backscatter generator, sigh), eliminated it from cc.)
    
Hi Doug,

    find any executables or sources or directions that make it easy 
    for some value of "easy") to convert TeX's source code into final 
    runnable C code for the command line program "tex".

Please peruse http://tug.org/texlive/build.html.  If still at a loss,
let me know.

Once you have debuggable binaries, however, the fun is just beginning.
I've read TeX: The Program several times (I strongly suggest having
a copy open by your terminal) and still find debugging it a challenge.

I would suggest running hello.tex with dviluatex as a point of
comparison, or even a first attempt.  It will be simpler to follow,
because 1) .c files generated from the luatex cweb sources have #line
information and therefore gdb is able to show you the actual source
locations, and 2) there is no underscore mangling.

Then you can compare against a run of the original tex.

Hope this helps,
Karl


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