[XeTeX] xelatex math problem with sqrt

[Jonathan Kew]

On 29 May 2008, at 4:44 pm, Ulrike Fischer wrote:

> Am Thu, 29 May 2008 15:46:20 +0100 schrieb L J Davies:
>
>> I reinstalled MiKTeX at the weekend as I did have a minor problem  
>> with it;
>> for some reason the update mechanism reported that it could not  
>> find the
>> executable initexmf.exe.
>
> I think the messages (which I get to) means that initexmf can't find
> some context related executables. I ignored the messages.
>
>
>> I tried
>> 	
>> \documentclass{article}
>> \begin{document}
>> $\sqrt{x^1_2}$
>> \end{document}
>>
>> and this code worked for me too.
>
> I made some tests. As far as I can see the problem disappear when I  
> set
> enough trace-options. It doesn't matter what options I set as long  
> as I
> set enough. So I think there is a timing problem.

That's really strange; I can't imagine how timing could be important.  
Perhaps more likely there's some kind of memory allocation/ 
overwriting issue, and when you start changing trace options you  
influence how the allocations and access happens.

It would be good to somehow figure out what's really going on, as  
this might indicate a potential bug in any or all implementations; we  
just happen to "get lucky" on the other platforms so far, and not  
actually trigger it. Or, of course, it could be something specific to  
the MikTeX port.

JK