TeX, LaTeX and Friends

@FaheemMitha we tried cons for a while with latex (perl implementation of a make like system) but it was really painful so for some years things forked using make on *nix and home grown bat files on windows, but they didn't do the same things and making a release got impossibly difficult so then "we" (@JosephWright) re-wrote the whole build and test logic in cross platform lua (as shipped by luatex) so it works anywhere texlive works

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Yes, build systems can be problematic.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Oh god, cons

Faheem Mitha

7:02 AM

Doesn't look like Mercurial does preserve file timestamps. There's a filestamp preservation extension, though.

David Carlisle

@JosephWright was that before your time in the team, I can't remember exactly?

Faheem Mitha

I've used scons. I think that's related.

Possibly a successor. Written in Python.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha yes I think we tried that as well, abandoned both.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle It was still about when I started; I had to use it a couple of times in the first LaTeX2e releases I was involved with

@DavidCarlisle Set it up on my Mac, there's a StackOverflow question I posted to get that sorted

CarLaTeX

7:25 AM

@PauloCereda twitter.com/changelog/status/1173894108278087680?s=09

daleif

7:52 AM

Yesterday, on mathtools and not eating spaces, I was referring to

\MaybeMHPrecedingSpacesOff
\renewcommand\aligned@a[1][c]{\start@aligned{#1}\m@ne}
\MHPrecedingSpacesOn

Where \Maybe... is actually \MHPrecedingSpacesOff, defined from mhsetup. Here is the relevant code

\long\def\MH_nospace_ifnextchar:Nnn #1#2#3{
\MH_let:NwN\reserved@d=~#1
\def\reserved@a{#2}
\def\reserved@b{#3}
\futurelet\@let@token\MH_nospace_nextchar:
}
\def\MH_nospace_nextchar:{
\MH_if_meaning:NN \@let@token\reserved@d
\MH_let:NwN \reserved@b\reserved@a
\MH_fi:
\reserved@b
}
\long\def\MH_nospace_testopt:nn #1#2{
\MH_nospace_ifnextchar:Nnn[
{#1}
{#1[{#2}]}
}
\def\MH_nospace_protected_testopt:n #1{
\MH_if_meaning:NN \protect\@typeset@protect
\expandafter\MH_nospace_testopt:nn
\MH_else:
\@x@protect#1

The part that interests me is the fact that the aligned env basically does \newenvironemnt{aligned}{...\aligned@a}{...} so why does that don't eat spaces up to option arg work here, when we know it does not on a normal macro. Is it because of the expansion rules instead?

Joseph Wright

@daleif Because TeX is searching after a brace group, so not ingoring spaces; after a control word, TeX is ignoring spaces and there is nothing to be done

David Carlisle

8:11 AM

@daleif in \begin{foo} [zz] there is a space token before [ so the macro code can choose to ignore it and take zz as an argument or choose to see it and typeset [zz] but with macros, \foo [zz] is the same as \foo[zz] there is no space token in either case..

daleif

8:23 AM

Thanks for the explanation. So it basically means that because \aligned@a is called from within an environment it can see a space token (because it gets delivered like this by the expansion), but in plain macros it is impossible as the space token is never seen.

David Carlisle

@daleif more than the space token not seen, the space is never tokenised. Note this only applies to the first argument if you have an optional argument in any other position like \foo{zz} [bar] then you again have the option to handle the space token in different ways.

egreg

9:43 AM

Wow! Four minutes and a spam post has disappeared!

Paulo Cereda

@egreg woo

Faheem Mitha

10:27 AM

This is probably only marginally related, but latexmk is unhappy that my LaTeX document doesn't generate a PDF. But it's purpose is only to generate some text files, using filecontents.

Is there some canonical way to get it to stop complaining?

The man page isn't the greatest.

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha -pdf- ?

Hm then DVI mode is enabled. Scratch that.

daleif

@FaheemMitha can you provide an example for testing

yo'

@FaheemMitha latexmk is really not the tool for that; you can simply run latex

Ulrike Fischer

11:02 AM

@FaheemMitha the manual has a section about output types "ALLOWING FOR CHANGE OF OUTPUT FILE TYPE".

Faheem Mitha

11:12 AM

@daleif A file with just a filecontents block (I'm using the package) and nothing else should work. I used latexmk -pdf %s.

@UlrikeFischer Ok, I'll look at that. Thank you.

@UlrikeFischer Don't get a match for man latexmk. Version 4.61.

Is there a different manual?

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha texdoc latexmk

Faheem Mitha

@PauloCereda Ah. Thanks.

Over here that just brings up what appears to be a config file.

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer could you give me a pointer regarding MiKTeX?

Ulrike Fischer

11:32 AM

@PauloCereda Sure.

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer Could you find out the path for arara rules?

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda how?

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer I've no idea (feature for next release: print rule locations). :)

@UlrikeFischer just check if it's not AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX 2.9\scripts\arara\rules.

daleif

@FaheemMitha otherwise make a question on the site or email John Collins (the maintainer), John reads the site. What is the purpose of a LaTeX file that only generates other latex files (other than perhaps dtx files)

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda hm. I'm not sure how to check if something is not in the path. The main rules are on my system all in D:\MiKTeX2.9\scripts\arara\rules. AppData\Local wouldn't be a normal installation place, but it is possible that someone put miktex there. But why do you need external info? Doesn't arara know where it looks for rules?

Paulo Cereda

11:48 AM

@UlrikeFischer It does, I had a user who set the rule path to that location, that's why I was intrigued. But everything worked out in the end. :)

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda does arara use kpse and all the trees?

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer Not yet. :) arara uses itself to find the closest rule path.

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda well an option "show the path for rules" would be useful. I always forget where I put some rules needed for the christmas stuff shared by my computers.

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer ooh

egreg

12:18 PM

@PauloCereda While I was looking at it and before I could reach the flag button, the counter went from -4 to -7 and the post was removed!

egreg

12:44 PM

@yo' Spotted \everymath{\displaystyle} in a class for theses.

@yo' And, to be really sure to get bad typesetting, \let\prelim\lim\renewcommand{\lim}{\displaystyle\prelim}

Paulo Cereda

1:20 PM

@barbarabeeton a surprise quack!

Faheem Mitha

@daleif In this case, it just outputs CVS files. It's just a convenience thing.

That file also has comments.

Paulo Cereda

1:50 PM

@UlrikeFischer: now I realized that most of the info I wanted to know is already in the header of the arara.log! It seems my past self is way less dumb than my present self. :)

2

yo'

2:33 PM

@egreg Haha

Alan Munn

Most of here have ailihphilia. Hopefully nobody suffers from aibohphobia.

Faheem Mitha

@daleif I'm not sure what to do. Ask a question on the site? Write to John Collins? What do you advise? Seems like a trivial question for the site - is it really suitable?

It doesn't look like latexmk has a public issue tracker.

And unlike most things, it's not on GitHub.

And CTAN doesn't have an issue tracker or repositories. Actually the CTAN page doesn't even mention the upstream software home page.

Alan Munn

@FaheemMitha CTAN is simply a code clearing house, nothing more. It's up to individual package authors to supply any information about bug trackers or repos.

Faheem Mitha

@AlanMunn An upstream page would be useful, at least. Debian includes that in package information, for example.

Alan Munn

2:51 PM

@FaheemMitha I know, but it's up to authors to provide the info. You can when you submit. See the optional fields here: ctan.org/upload

Faheem Mitha

@AlanMunn I see. Thank for the clarification.

Weird, it's defaulting to latexmk here.

Oh

> The upload has been started after a package page for latexmk has been visited.

That's very thoughtful.

Alan Munn

@FaheemMitha E.g. @JosephWright has info for siunitx ctan.org/pkg/siunitx but @DavidCarlisle has none for his 88 packages... :) (Well I didn't check all of them. Maybe there's a bug tracker for indentfirst.)

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha But for a lot of people it's just 'email the address in the source'

@FaheemMitha CTAN can only add data as supplied: GDPR and all that

StrongBad

@AlanMunn @DavidCarlisle doesn't need bug trackers, he just needs feature trackers.

7

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright I wasn't suggesting CTAN add the web pages themselves. I wasn't aware that GDPR was relevant, though.

Alan Munn

2:59 PM

@StrongBad True.

Paulo Cereda

@StrongBad LOL

@AlanMunn twitter.com/changelog/status/1173894108278087680

Faheem Mitha

Would anyone like to comment on whether the latexmk would actually be a reasonable question for the site, please?

Alan Munn

@FaheemMitha I guess it's borderline. If it can't be done, it probably falls into a feature request, in which case emailing John would be a better route than asking a question.

Faheem Mitha

@AlanMunn Hmm.

David Purton

Gah! Why does someword hyphenate, but someword--- not hyphenate with lualatex? :(

Sebastiano

3:10 PM

A best regards everyone into chat

I'm choking by the heat. Now it will be 33 degrees or 32. I hope best for yourselves in chat and wherever you are.

David Purton

@Sebastiano Come back to me when you get to an Adelaide summer…

Alan Munn

@FaheemMitha On the other hand, given that there are more than 12 pages of options, maybe some combination of them actually can do it, and asking a question would get such an answer.

daleif

@FaheemMitha If you feel it is worth looking into just write him an email, it is listed in the manual. I do not have a github page or a bug tracker for memoir either.

David Purton

@Sebastiano, in fact we will get to 30 here tomorrow!

Faheem Mitha

Hi @Sebastiano

@AlanMunn Ok, I'll ask a question then.

Paulo Cereda

3:58 PM

@FaheemMitha Why didn't you give a name to your generated file?

Faheem Mitha

4:15 PM

@PauloCereda Oh, I forgot. I'll do it now.

David Carlisle

@AlanMunn there is (the latex project github), but no one ever reported anything of course

Faheem Mitha

4:59 PM

@DavidCarlisle Would you like people to?

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle there is also a dpc github where no one ever reporting anything either ;-(

Alan Munn

@DavidCarlisle I wasn't actually making an existence claim of the repo, but an existence claim of a link to the repo in the CTAN listing.

@FaheemMitha Surely a DPC bug is like a DPC question.

Faheem Mitha

@AlanMunn Mythic?

David Carlisle

5:26 PM

@AlanMunn yes I know, I noticed while updating textcase the other day that there were no links and I added them for that one, but the others not yet.

@FaheemMitha there is not really room for a bug in indentfirst (the package code is only 4 tokens)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle hmmm

barbara beeton

6:10 PM

@DavidPurton -- "someword---" wouldn't hyphenate even with plain tex. it follows the rule "don't hyphenate a word that already contains a hyphen." If you want it to hyphenate, insert \hspace{0pt} before the hyphen, probably followed by \nobreak so that the line won't break before the em-dash.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

7:44 PM

@Sebastiano We have 8 °C right now …

David Carlisle

@HaraldHanche-Olsen luxury

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@DavidCarlisle Indeed, I can chill my beer outside. No need for a refrigerator.

@DavidCarlisle I found a bug in a one line shell script once. And that one line was short. it was part of Solaris.

The script was /usr/bin/kill, and the one line was something like kill "$@". (In addition to several comment lines containing a copyright notice.) The most important bug: It lacked an initial #!/bin/sh line.

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends