Good evening to all American users, and good morning to the rest of the world. I’d like to contact @cmhughes apropos her/his answer to the following question:

I think that the answer, in spite of the numerous upvotes collected, is wrong. I’ve posted another, looong answer that, among other things, explains why I think so.

@DavidCarlisle Wow, a “feature” added (or removed…) in just a few hours!

Good night to all American users, I wish a nice day to the rest of the world.

(Well, I wish a nice tomorrow to Americans as well, of course…!)

@GuM I wouldn't say the answer is wrong. It just makes unwarranted assumptions about the question due to a missing MWE. In hindsight it should probably have been a comment.

@HenriMenke @StefanKottwitz How do you deal with cross-forum duplicates? This TeXWelt question and this TeX.SX question are pretty much the same. Am I supposed/allowed to answer both of them with the same code? If not, I'll be happy to delete one of my answers.

@HenriMenke @StefanKottwitz Also, am I supposed/allowed to merge both accounts? Is that even possible?

@marmot There is no cross-forum interoperability, which is kind of impossible due to the language difference. Usually, I ask people in either place to repost their answer in the other. If the answerer is not on both platforms I repost myself as CW.

@marmot However, it doesn't happen that often.

@marmot In the case you mentioned, the user asking the question has accounts on both platforms and cross-posted the question: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/327117/…

@marmot TeX.SX is run by a multi million dollars worth network. TeXwelt is run by Stefan, with some support by DANTE. No, not possible.

Uh, what the …?

⬥ texdoc amsldoc
/Library/TeX/texbin/texdoc:7: module 'texdoc.main' not found:
	no field package.preload['texdoc.main']
	[kpse lua searcher] file not found: 'texdoc.main'
	[kpse C searcher] file not found: 'texdoc.main'
	no file '/usr/local/lib/lua/5.2/texdoc.so'
	no file '/usr/local/lib/lua/5.2/loadall.so'
	no file './texdoc.so'

This happens on one or two laptops with identical TeX setup (TL 2017). It works on the other, but that one doesn't have any texdoc.main either, apparently. There seems to be magic at work here?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen hmmm curious

@PauloCereda Oh wait … looks like a port upgrade has been installing TeX stuff. Gotta git rid of that, then maybe things will work once more.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen ah that might explain it

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I am interested in this because it looks like texdoc will be my responsibility soon (and also I have a debt with @JosephWright and the L3 project regarding Lua projects).

I take off my glasses to do whatever and one minute later I cannot find them!

@PauloCereda are you sure you did take them off?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen oh I am sure, as my eyesight is terrible. :)

@PauloCereda Yes, removing texlive* did help. It so annoying, the packages in macports depending on texlive. It is possible for packages to depend on specific binaries in PATH instead, and only falling back on a macports package if the binary does not exist. But package maintainers don't seem to like those options.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Oh I see.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen: out of curiosity, have you tried brew?

@PauloCereda No. Apart from the texlive annoyance, I have been a happy user of macports for more years than I can count, and consider the cost of switching too high. (I used fink before that, but got fed up with it and used to macports. Except I think it was called darwinports then.)

@PauloCereda But I have been wondering if nix might be a good alternative.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Ah cool. I am using brew for a quite a while. Although I don't have much stuff, everything seems to work fine (except when they don't). :)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Oh I have heard of it. Might try someday. It's like the flatpak initiative of Linux distros, which I really don't like, but that's just personal taste. :) nix is available too.

@PauloCereda You forgot snap packages, Ubuntu's greatest invention ;)

@CarLaTeX Nice one! (If only we could rid of the comma.)

@CarLaTeX :-)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen it's simpler to add 200000 than get rid of the comma

@DavidCarlisle I have a feeling we are going to have 'fun' with accents-in-filenames ...

@GuM just a bit longer:-) (you can ping cmhughes by leaving an @ comment under the accepted answer)

@JosephWright It was really what I was trying to get to work before christmas. logically if the main filename works then input files should work, but that isn't what happened previously filenames worked until you loaded inputenc, which isn't that logical but...

@DavidCarlisle Ah right, hadn't thought of that

We could make just the main filename work by flipping things in \everyjob although that is too late for some "interesting" uses of the commandline

@DavidCarlisle I guess will therefore show mainly in short docs that might have just the top-level file

@DavidCarlisle May be required

@JosephWright it's a shame etex didn't provide an \ifinfilename status test

@DavidCarlisle I do see why Hans just goes with one, modern, engine

@JosephWright running some tests...

@DavidCarlisle Cool: see also the space issue

@DavidCarlisle We should probably sort both of these today ...

@marmot Yes, please feel free to answer, even with same code! An additional link to each other site/post would be good. (link only answers are considered bad on all sites. it may be good for the user in the second, but bad for the solution archive in long term. links just send users away. Code and content is good.)

@DavidCarlisle Concerning what?

@yo' I've done something similar for my own purposes already, but I would prefer .prop_set:N etc. stuff out of the box, i.e. something builtin in l3kernel

@ChristianHupfer Was never really the intention to support this: I'd need a use case to see what you are up to :)

@CarLaTeX Don't mind @DavidCarlisle is grumbling about strange commas that shouldn't appear there anyway ;-)

@JosephWright Ask @Skillmon ;-) and you wrote once that Bruno has some idea about this to get done ;-)

@ChristianHupfer Oh, Bruno has all sorts of ideas

@JosephWright Sounds like... 'but only of a few of them are really implemented (or good)' ;-)

@ChristianHupfer see marmot's image on the line above my comment

@ChristianHupfer No, most of them are implemented, lots of them are bonkers: see for example intarray, l3regex, ...

@DavidCarlisle Ah.... no, I don't miss anything. I don't need to be addressed there just for being a German .... don't mention the war, by the way ;-)

@JosephWright I know, I wrote that just in order to 'annoy' you ;-)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen @ChristianHupfer These strange Britons who use commas instead of points :):):)(@DavidCarlisle)

@CarLaTeX 22🦆222

@JosephWright we could use a modern engine with regular expressions and dynamic array allocation....

@DavidCarlisle There are attractions to Hans' approach ...

are there online live compliers for tex?

@Mathematrix ShareLaTeX or Overleaf perhaps?

i'm trying to edit a big piece of code for a tikz image, and I'd like to see the changes live

do those software support live editing?

@Mathematrix You mean as-you-edit: it's tricky as TeX is essentially batch-focussed

the ask-question boxes seems to support this to an extent, in math.se

(also, please correct me if this is not the place to ask these questions)

@Mathematrix That's MathJax, a very small subset of the same input syntax

@Mathematrix That's MathJaX 'only', which isn't TeX really

hm, okay

i'll guess ill just have to work with what I've got

thanks, Christian/Joseph.

@Mathematrix you can try out sharelatex/overleaf for free, but if you are half way through writing some long tikz path there is not much any system can do apart from wait until it is complete

@DavidCarlisle BaKoMa might work ...

@DavidCarlisle <3<3<3

@JosephWright All checks passed hmmm

@UlrikeFischer If I remember correctly hub.docker.com was the site used for the docker images

@samcarter Yes you are right that was it. Can I have the code for the rooks in the chess set?

@UlrikeFischer What a coincidence, I was just writing this message :)

@UlrikeFischer In case you'd like to have the original code for the chess pieces in order to create the marmot and monochrome chess pieces: github.com/samcarter8/tikzducks/blob/master/duckpond/chess.tex

@LoopSpace Thanks for your reply! I'll change the name for the next version of the package. For last weeks version, I wanted to be on the safe side and included the pseudonym.

@DavidCarlisle Another release?

@JosephWright well travis says it passed, I'm at 215/348 here, but I guess so we don't have any test cases for either 32 or 33 though, is l3build's file handling Ok to have a test file checked in with a funky name? Have you tried my space in provides package version (Denis just gave me a shock:-)

@DavidCarlisle Let me rebuild my formats

@DavidCarlisle File names should be fine: l3build just uses standard Lua stuff

@samcarter No worries! That's what I would have done. Now that I'm on the duck team, as it were, anything else that I could look at?

@samcarter That wasn't why I wanted them ;-)

@UlrikeFischer Oh, you changed your user image! Nice!

@samcarter Yes I'm quite happy with it ;-)

@UlrikeFischer Just hope that these are not the twin towers ;-)

@LoopSpace Thanks for the offer! I'll ping you when I can think of something :)

@marmot No they had no ducks keeping watch.

@UlrikeFischer It increases the total duck count by one, even after @CarLaTeX switching back to the green square.

@samcarter @LoopSpace Imho the most pressing issue is to get rid of the scope environment if one want to shift a duck. And it should be possible to use it on a path (with pic).

@UlrikeFischer Did you see github.com/samcarter8/tikzducks/blob/master/duckpond/… ?

Shifting should be easier now.

@samcarter that looks very good. Exactly what I meant.

@UlrikeFischer Thanks to @LoopSpace - he added a clever wrapper for a tikzlibrary

@JosephWright "File names should be fine" ... see mail

@DavidCarlisle Rebuilding formats now

@samcarter I'm thinking about a renewal, something less anitidaephobic...

@CarLaTeX How about your old image with the tower? It was also a nice icon.

@JosephWright thanks

@samcarter The tower is Sforza Castle in Milan :):):) maybe I'll come back to it, but I would like to add something feminine, otherwise users think I'm Carl :):):)

@DavidCarlisle Looks good here

@DavidCarlisle On the test file, I guess the issue that the bytes don't look like valid for the file system itself ...

@CarLaTeX Oh, good point! I did never think to read the name like this :)

cygwin ls shows

$ ls non-ascii
'tlb-utf8-nonascii-É-∞-'$'\360\235\220\200''-name.lvt'
'tlb-utf8-nonascii-É-∞-'$'\360\235\220\200''-name.tlg'

@JosephWright ^^ I have no ides what that $ is doing there:-)

@samcarter It happened often, maybe due to the image of a fort :)

@JosephWright perhaps I should check in a less aggressive test file but I was trying to test 2 3 and 4 byte characters

@CarLaTeX my husband says you should paint the tower pink ;-)

@UlrikeFischer The mayor doesn't agree LOL

@DavidCarlisle Sounds good

@JosephWright fails even without the bold A, I'll leave it for now, and try to trace the name in lua another day. I guess it's just you and me around, PL2 ?

@DavidCarlisle Yes, go for it: we really want to make the DVD freeze

@DavidCarlisle Frank's left one of us in charge in guess ...

@DavidCarlisle Only needs base

@JosephWright yes and doc really (as I bumped latexchanges, although that file isn't that interesting these days)

@DavidCarlisle Ah, yes

@JosephWright build ctan running...

@PauloCereda -- after asking too many times "where are my glasses?" only to be told that they are on the top of my head, i got a "leash" that clips onto both earpieces, so now i wear them all the time around my neck. (pretty funny when i add my computer glasses, take them off and hang them also around my neck, and then put on sunglasses.) so far, it works, and i don't remember how many years it has been.

@barbarabeeton my mom used to always wear her glasses on a leash, given she worked in a pharmacy and needed to put them on and off like hundreds of times a day

@barbarabeeton I know someone who has a pair of glasses in every room of her house.

@barbarabeeton My glasses have no frame around the lens, so when I take them off, it's very difficult for me find where I left them in the first place. :) I thought of a leash, but since I need to use glasses all the time, it could be annoying. :)

Mum suggest I get a neon-coloured frame for the next glasses.

@PauloCereda true that I don't need a leash because the only time I remove them during the day is for things like swimming or getting a haircut :)

@yo' Me too.

@yo' me... throo?

:D

@yo' -- i actually don't have my glasses in front of my eyes most of the time. i need them for driving. i don't need them for "normal" reading (i.e. books) but i do need separate ones for the computer. and my sunglasses are a distance prescription with bifocals so that i can read maps without taking the glasses off. it gets so complicated ...

@barbarabeeton yeah, it gets. What worked for me for a while was convertibles, and what works for my mom are self-darkening ones.

@PauloCereda -- it really didn't take very long to get used to the leash. and it didn't cost very much either -- much less than replacing the glasses when i've sat on them.

@barbarabeeton :D

@yo' -- the self-darkening ones don't change quickly enough. driving through tunnels gets rather dangerous at highway speeds.

@barbarabeeton uh-oh!

@barbarabeeton oh yeah, tunnels... Well, none of these is relevant to me, I can't really wear sunglasses, and moreover, when in the car, I'm so tall that the roof serves as a sunsheild

My eyesight is very bad lately... :(

@yo' -- if you're ever driving in california in the vicinity of san jose, there's one stretch of highway where in late afternoon it's impossible to avoid driving directly into the sun. if you depended on an opaque shield, you wouldn't be able to see the traffic. it's a wonder there aren't more pileups in that location.

@JosephWright :(

@barbarabeeton well, the point is that I'm quite sensitive to light (even getting conjunctivitis acuta easily from being photoed at night with a flash). For this I avoid wearing sunglasses and save that for places like Rio :)

Speaking of Rio, @egreg do you already know your plan?

@DavidCarlisle ???

@JosephWright tl list verbatimbox

@DavidCarlisle Funny isn't it: we didn't even discuss this particular change

@DavidCarlisle Issue with the package, I'd say

@DavidCarlisle It's missing a space

        [2014/03/12 \verbatimboxVersionNumber
Routines for placing verbatim text into boxes, useful in places where
the verbatim environment is inaccessible.  Secondarily, for adding
vertical buffer around an object.]

@DavidCarlisle You see exactly the same in TL'17

@yo' Not yet fully. The idea is to arrive a couple of days before the meeting, then leave on Monday to go with Paulo.

@JosephWright yes but the only required space is after the date

@JosephWright but not tl2016

@DavidCarlisle So not urgent then

@DavidCarlisle Release PL2 now, we can sort this for the next PL/release/whatever (if it's even necessary: sorry but the \ProvidesPackage argument is wrong)

@egreg ah ok. And when would you go from SP to home? Because I can't do it like that, I will come just like 2 days before the meeting (flying PRG-RIO on Tuesday probably). Then I wanna see Itaipu and Iguacu, flying from RIO there and back, which means I'll stay in Rio for a bit longer.

@egreg See above

@JosephWright I didn't stop the build (273/348) now

@barbarabeeton I lost a pair of glasses at sea once. I was doing about 15 knots heading into a gale force headwind when I looked back, and the glasses blew off my face and into the sea. They were quite expensive ones, too. Ever since, I make sure to secure them when at sea.

@JosephWright I don't think it's that, you get the same with \ProvidesPackage{verbatimbox}[2014/03/12 v3.13 zzz] it's picking up dates from the packages it includes

@JosephWright oh it's listofitems, which doesn't have an explicit space \ProvidesPackage\loiname[\loidate\space v\loiver\space Grab items in lists using user-specified sep char (CT)]

@yo' That mostly depends on Paulo.

@egreg you can stay as much as you want. :)

@JosephWright oh for @@@@ sake readarray has [\readarrayPackageDate\ \readarrayPackageVersion\ % with no space even after expansion:(

@DavidCarlisle In other words, people have done unfortunate things

@PauloCereda well, the point is whether you are willing to travel 3 times to SP (once to pick me and twice to escort each of us back)

I mean, I'm sure I would manage to travel from SP to Analandia by myself, but you seemed worried about this option

@yo' I am at your entirely disposal. You two.

@PauloCereda ok. Which is better to travel to SP, Friday or Saturday?

@yo' to SP? Any day is miserable. :)

@PauloCereda :D

I think it all depends on the time.

@PauloCereda well, I can leave RIO at any time of the day, there seem to be like 30 flights a day :)

@yo' That's true. :)

@PauloCereda btw, is there a reasonable railway between the two? Not that I would take it, it's more a curiosity

@yo' Brazil got rid of the railway system a couple of decades ago, much to my anger. It would be the perfect way of traveling interstate.

@PauloCereda well, that sucks. Especially with this heavy traffic between the two cities

@yo' I know of a bus connecting Rio and São Carlos (a city nearby Analândia), but I believe the trip takes around 8 hours.

@yo' Exactly. And other annoyances as well.

@JosephWright @egreg I'm not sure the handling of \RequirePackage{listofitems}[2016-10-22] in readarray.sty is correct (but it's no different to tl2017) given the time I push pl2 to ctan?

@DavidCarlisle Shouldn't ISO date style be supported now?

@egreg yes

@DavidCarlisle Then it's quite curious that the incorrect date is picked up in TL2018

@egreg I think I'm getting tired, I'm tracing circles, but I'm worried about pushing to ctan without understanding this (even if we don't fix this time)

@PauloCereda You need a small alarm on the glasses. Then you sent a signal and they can quack.

@DavidCarlisle Taking alook

@DavidCarlisle It seems that the culprit is \RequirePackage{listofitems}[2016-10-22] in readarray.sty.

@DavidCarlisle, @egreg I'm obviously missing something: what's the problem?

@JosephWright Try latex '\documentclass{article}\usepackage{verbatimbox}\stop' with TL2017 and TL2018

@egreg yes exactly and even if you clean up all the weird macro names and use explicit dates in the providespackage lines that date still appears in the message

@DavidCarlisle I tried looking in listofitems.tex and there seems to be nothing suspicious

@egreg I need to stop for a bit, any hints welcome

@DavidCarlisle What is the example document? And which latex version does one need to test the issue?

@DavidCarlisle If I switch the lines \RequirePackage{ifthen} and \RequirePackage{listofitems}[2016/10/22] in readarray.sty, the message disappears. Apparently listofitems pollutes something.

@egreg Think I've got it

@samcarter -- your question tex.stackexchange.com/q/425453 clearly belongs in the list tex.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2419 in meta. but it's not clear to me that there's a suitable category. "fonts" doesn't do it. maybe a new category "text as text"?

@JosephWright What do you think it's due to?

@egreg Frank's added some tracing machinery which redefines \@onefilewithoptions

@egreg There, we end up with:

 \def\@onefilewithoptions#1[#2][#3]#4{%
  \pkgcls@debug{--- File loaded request (\noexpand\usepackage or ...)}%
  \pkgcls@debug{\@spaces 1: #1}%
  \pkgcls@debug{\@spaces 2: #2}%
  \pkgcls@debug{\@spaces 3: #3}%
  \pkgcls@debug{\@spaces 4: #4}%
  \def\pkgcls@name{#1}%                  % for info message
  \def\pkgcls@arg {#3}%                  % for info message
  \pkgcls@parse@date@arg{#3}%
  \let\pkgcls@candidate\@empty
  \load@onefilewithoptions#1[#2][\pkgcls@mindate]#4%
 }

The issue is that last line: we need to expand the date

@DavidCarlisle I'll fix shortly

@DavidCarlisle Should now be fixed

@JosephWright Confirmed

@PauloCereda @egreg Ok, so I arrive at Rio/GIG on Tue Jul 17 at 19:35 and I leave from SP/GRU on Mon Aug 6 at 19:35 (yes, the times are identical) I travel by KLM via Amsterdam

@DavidCarlisle, @egreg I can build/upload a bit later, but not until about 10pm GMT

@yo' Oooh

@yo' I've got to book that (I'll go KLM too)

@yo' I might aim for the same flight back as you ...

@PauloCereda I'll get the tickets from RIO to SP later, the plan is to travel on Fri Jul 27, but it's preliminary plan. Which airport in SP is more convenient?

@JosephWright You go to SP as well?

@UlrikeFischer ooh

@yo' Oh, SP: I thought you were going to Rio ...

@JosephWright Rio there, SP back :)

@yo' It was the KLM part I spotted

I originally planned to go Swiss (Zurych), but they got 20% more expensive than KLM over the last weeks.

@yo' It depends. :) For me, I opted for VCP, which is in Campinas, but either GRU or CGH are ok if you don't mind going to SP. However I believe you will only be able to leave SP to Prague from GRU.

@JosephWright let's all get a party

@PauloCereda yeah, my flight to Amster is from GRU

@yo' ooh

@PauloCereda well, I would like to see SP at least for half a day. One option is to go there on Mon Aug 6 in the morning, as my flight is in the evening. The other option is to go there when I arrive from Rio to SP

@yo' If you're in SP then Congohnas is more convenient for domestic flights than Guarulhos since it's much closer. There are no international flights from Congonhas.

@AlanMunn but remember I travel to @Paulo's (the shaky bus), so it changes the preferences.

@AlanMunn @yo' Alan is right (although Congonhas has a few international flights... just a very few). Congonhas is in the heart of the city, so it offers a logistic strategy. GRU is far from the city of SP.

Anyway, anyone plans to join me on the Itaipu/Iguacu trip? (a freakingly huge dam and power plant and freakingly huge waterfalls) I will go there from Rio (spending one night there)

now I'm sorry, I gotta go, my bus to the evening church service is in 13 minutes

@yo' ooh church bus

@PauloCereda Really? Where to?

Have a nice service, Tom!

@JosephWright thanks

@AlanMunn POA? :)

@JosephWright I can probably build now, I'll pull and test here and rebuild

@DavidCarlisle \tracingall to the rescue

@DavidCarlisle Great

@JosephWright yes I had that but i was sidetracked by the weird provideslines in those packages, then i needed to eat:-)

@JosephWright oh no

@DavidCarlisle Sure

@DavidCarlisle It doesn't help much, but the ver@... lines were mainly OK

@AlanMunn From the top of my head, I know Buenos Aires is covered.

Although you might claim that a flight to Argentina is not exactly international. :D

@PauloCereda Yes, I figured it would mainly be Mercosul destinations at best.

@AlanMunn indeed. It was recent, from 2010 I guess.

@PauloCereda Ah, ok. So it's a fairly recent addition.

@PauloCereda lol

@AlanMunn It's been a while since last time I went to CGH.

@PauloCereda well, there've been a lot of interesting church projects in Praguey so maybe one day there'll be a bus/tram worship

@yo' cool

Is there a way how i can use something like \dotfill as \extracolsep?

@Skillmon no

@DavidCarlisle too bad.

@DavidCarlisle Then I'll have to build what I want without using a tabular*. Would have been to easy.

@Skillmon you can of course construct some kind of table with dots in that position, but you'd have to do a lot of positioning by hand, \extracolsep is a very thin wrapper around the tex primitive and that needs real glue not leaders

@DavidCarlisle I'll just do something with a \parbox or the like and some \makebox magic :)

@Skillmon which is why colortbl has issues with \extracolsep

@DavidCarlisle vice.com/it/article/mb9e84/…

@barbarabeeton Thanks for suggestion. Do you think tex.stackexchange.com/questions/425453/… would fit in tex.meta.stackexchange.com/a/6539/36296?

@CarLaTeX oh yes the shed. I think more a comment on the merits of internet voting rather than the merits of British food

@marmot Never mind, feel free to make your hilarious jokes at my expense then

By the way, for everyone who was pleading me not to leave, it's far too late. I've already quit a long time ago (2 years? 3? Dunno)

@hftf This is the second time that you attack me. This is not what this forum is for.

@hftf Honestly if you think that @marmot is making fun of you, I really think you're misinterpreting his posts entirely.

@hftf your initial comments about over use of ducks etc were measured and lots of people had sympathy with your point of view but your comments claiming that @marmot's comments are "at your expense" are frankly incomprehensible.

@hftf It's hard to imagine your leaving being because of ducks then, since the recent duck hysteria has been mainly prompted by the appearance of the tikzducks package, which was first released less than a year ago.

@marmot I certainly never attacked you nor anyone else and I'm shocked that anyone thought I did. I read the messages about "oh, but you are a turtle" and "snapping turtles will attack ducks" etc., which are obvious references to my avatar. So tell me how else I should possibly interpret an image with the text "turtles and ducks can coexist" aside from making fun of me because "I can't coexist"? (Isn't "subtweeting" what people call that these days?)

@AlanMunn Sorry, I should clarify. I quit contributing directly back then, due to the same general frivolous atmosphere that I consider the "duck" meme part of, but I was still lurking/reading/finding answers to my questions occasionally until now. You can check my activity profile if you don't believe that. Why would I lie about that anyway? Just because the package tikzducks was recently released doesn't mean that the joke didn't exist for a while before that and annoy me then as well.

Could you tell me what this forum is for then? My current understanding is that it's for duck memes and making fun of the alienated people who don't "get it". And maybe also for talking about TeX. I'm glad it's not for attacking people because so far I feel like I and my opinion have been attacked.