[XeTeX] \typeout command not recognized ?

Jonathan Kew jonathan_kew at sil.org
Fri Feb 24 11:43:35 CET 2006


On 24 Feb 2006, at 10:20 am, Bruno Voisin wrote:
>
> By the way, do you know where one can find the significance of  
> these stream numbers (again I don't have the TeXbook at hand right  
> now)?

Shame on you! ;-)

<texbook p="226-227">
... the <number> must be between 0 and 15 ...
If the <number> is negative or greater than 15, or if the specified  
stream has no file
open for output, the output goes to the user’s log file, and to the  
terminal unless the
number is negative.
</texbook>

So stream -1 will write to the log; stream 16 or higher (or any  
closed stream) to terminal and log; and a web2c extension makes  
writing to stream 18 execute a shell command, if the shell-escape  
feature is enabled.

And plain.tex defines \newwrite to allocate stream numbers to  
symbolic names, just like \newbox, \newcount, etc.

(The latex.ltx use of stream 15 to write texsys.aux is purely local;  
it just opens, writes a line, and closes.)

JK




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