Architecture TDS

[Pierre MacKay]

 > My only complaint is that I require a procedure (or a program) which can
 > automatically put any updated file (*.sty, *.cls, *.mf, *.*pk, etc.) in
 > the right subdirectory, with no chance of having the same file
 > duplicate, since duplication may lead to using an obsolete version owing
 > to randomly path searching.

The SVR4 package utility is designed to do just what you want, and I
believe that there is something similar in either Linux or BSD 4.4
For this reason I have begun reshaping useful packages into SVR4 
packages.  If you have not seen the format, take a look at levygrk.zip
on osman.classics.washington.edu (128.95.170.63) in /ftp/pub/tex.

If it intrigues you, I will go into more detail.  I think the basic
functionality of the SVR4 utility pkgadd could be built for any system
with a reasonable scripting language.  Every time a package is imported
into the system the details from pkgmap are merged into a database. 
and when an upgrade comes along, the database is searched to discover
just when the old stuff is so that it can be removed before the upgrade
is installed.  This also provides for backing out upgrades, if you have enough
spare disk to preserve the obsolete files.  

It is a great system, and works at the most complex levels of the operating
system files, so its sufficiency for TeX application files is not
a problem.

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