@AlanMunn -- I think not. there's a tag "logging" (which I think would be better as "log-file", but ...) with 81 questions, but I didn't spot anything promising. (A comment on one question mentioned texloganalyser.) At BachoTUG 2017, I gave a presentation on debugging LaTeX files and you're most entirely welcome to steal from that. I agree strongly that a good description of using a log file is much needed, and offer to help compile it.

@AlanMunn -- There's also a tag "debugging" with 308 items. One promising question: Teach me to debug. (There seem to be several more. I'm going to add a category "Debugging & log files" to the "often referenced questions" list. But there's no really good general question/answer.)

@AlanMunn Also this is a very good one: tex.stackexchange.com/a/500700/134574

@PhelypeOleinik -- I just added that to the "Often referenced questions list" on meta. If you find some other good ones, please feel free to add them there.

@DavidCarlisle I see. But any font that works with [pdf]tex should also work with dviluatex, if I got it right. I was just surprised I would need [T1]{fontenc} in a minimal document to be compilable with dvilualatex.

Yay, first time I started Word today, just opening a document and activating editing, and it's going unresponsive :(

FROM OPENING A SIMPLE TWO PAGE DOCUMENT!!!

(sorry for loosing my cool and starting to scream)

The amount of work-time I'm losing because of that stupid program lets me question whether I'll get my PhD eventually. And that's just half a week into my PhD...

quack

@PauloCereda A DUCK

@JosephWright ooh another duck

@JosephWright two cupcakes are sitting in the oven. "Pretty hot in here", says the first one. Says the other: "AHHHH A TALKING CUPCAKE!!!!"

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz :)

@JosephWright one of the cutest jokes I know :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz /duck hug

@PauloCereda awww <3

A chemist told a joke but there was no reaction...

/sad trombone

@PauloCereda I once tried to tell a joke to Helium, but it didn't react. (That's the version of that joke I know)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ooh :)

I thought of telling a joke about sodium hydride but NaH...

@PauloCereda OH my

@JosephWright ooh :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz just remember a docx file is really a zip file of XML, just edit it in emacs:-)

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@DavidCarlisle why should I start another bloated OS inside of Windows? I'd just a text editor.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ooh

Social distancing in TeX

@PauloCereda :)

Second crash today!

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz That's odd: this is well outside the normal

@JosephWright you mean it should've crashed 5 times already?

@JosephWright I had the great idea to create a Word file in which I document each and every crash. While doing so it crashed. So we're at 3 crashes today!

Something is terribly wrong here. My Word is pretty much in factory settings. I only made two changes in order to keep it bug free: I switched to the dark grey theme instead of the ugly blue, and I inverted the colours in reading mode to get black paper with white colour.

Seems like in Word, light doesn't attract bugs.

AND IT CRASHED THE FOURTH TIME! Again while starting that ingenious project of documenting crashes in Word.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz oh no

All I did was inserting a 3x3 table. It was a newly started Word. I'll restart the PC and see whether that helps.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I suppose the obvious advice doesn't help....

That is a big table :(

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Try zapping normal.dot?

@barbarabeeton Sure thing! :-)

@yo' after a reboot stuff works again

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz good. But I meant another obvious advice: \begin{tabular}{*3l}...

@yo' of course that'd fix that. But what'd be the fun in that...

github.com/latex3/latex3/blob/…

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz -- Sounds like you're doomed. I hope these crashes don't affect anything else, like your ability to report them here. (Nothing we can do to keep them from affecting your sanity, for which we can only commiserate.)

@JosephWright ;-)

@barbarabeeton perhaps I should learn VBA and write a Word plugin that auto-reports crashes to this chat.

@JosephWright German duck dinner, for only a Euro? Sounds like a good deal.

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@DavidCarlisle that's only for the soft appetizer "Gruß aus der Küche"

@UlrikeFischer oh

Next Word crash! I created a new file. Wrote the sentence "This is some serious text." and switched to reading mode. In reading mode I inverted the page colour to ease my eyes and work safely (remember, light attracts bugs). When I switched to FF and back to Word it crashed.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Er, sounds like the 'reinstall PC from the discs' situation ...

@JosephWright is that a common situation in Windows?

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Used to be, less so now (I used to do it every couple of years as a matter-of-course; haven't had to with Win10)

@JosephWright I wanted to edit my word_crashes document. Then there was your answer, so I switched to FF to answer and switched back to Word. Another Crash. We're at 6 crashes today.

@JosephWright the PC is newly set-up for me. Win10 is now installed for a week. The only program crashing upon losing and regaining focus is Word...

This is pretty annoying :(

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Hmm, so should be OK

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I would try deleting normal.dot, like I said

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I don't use word, but I'm rather certain, that if word would normally crash every 5 minutes it would be known. Which reminds me: my editor crashed last week when I tried to load an external tex file. The author investigated and found out that the tex file had two lines starting with 3900 spaces and that was something he hadn't expected - the code assumed at most 1000 spaces.

@UlrikeFischer Which editor's that?

@UlrikeFischer Oh, WinEdt, of course

@JosephWright winedt.

@JosephWright what is normal.dot?

Another crash. I added the last two crashes to my log, saved and exited the programme. Upon exiting it crashed.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz It's the file Word uses to store all the basic layout and whatnot; if it gets corrupted, things go wrong

I'm starting to mirror my crash-log in a .txt file so that I can add the crashes there immediately and only later add them to the Word file

@JosephWright ah. So word managed to corrupt its own config file with the following changes made by the user to the default settings: Changed the colour theme from the built-in "bunt" to the built-in "dunkelgrau".

@JosephWright why do you know such things? :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz :)

@UlrikeFischer vim also has problems with lines of such length: It doesn't crash, but after 3000 characters syntax highlighting stops working and everything is colored in default colors. Quite a pain if you work with auto-generated JSON files or stuff like that.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz That would be my guess; certainly I'd start there

Funny, of the 6 crashes logged so far, 3 occured while I tried to log a crash :)

@MarcelKrüger the problem here was that winedt tried to autowrap the long lines while preserving the start space. But the author said he fixed it, in the next release it won't crash anymore.

Another crash! It's pretty reproducible now. Everytime Word loses and regains focus it crashes (except for the one time when it crashed while I tried to save and exit).

Hello to all of you ! I've a stupid question. Is it possible to name a folder or a file with -xyz ?

I begin to really despise Word. Before it was just a light dislike as it produced ugly documents. Now that dislikes is forged and molded into a strong hatred.

@AlainMatthes depends. In Windows most likely this crashes everything.

@AlainMatthes but on a usable OS this shouldn't be any problem

@AlainMatthes do you mean that is the name, or that you want to attach this to the name?

@UlrikeFischer @Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz that is the name. I've a problem with the han library of the pgfornament-han package. I would like rename the han folder with -han and the ornaments han1.pgf with -han1.pgf etc. It was a simple solution to my problem

16:49 I got my ninth crash today. Word doesn't crash on an empty document when switching windows. But as soon as I type in a sentence and switch away and back -> CRASH

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Want me to test something? I have Word in my Mac.

oh, I've started to put "-> Crash" after each line in the log.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz you could check the application event log. See e.g. here docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/excel/…

@AlainMatthes What kind of system are you using?

@PauloCereda yes, please open it, type: "Burn in hell you bugfest of an abominational software!" delete it. Format your drive. Fill your disk with random content completely. Reinstall your OS without Word.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Are you talking about Zoom?

@MarcelKrüger OS X . For me it's good but not for CTAN !

@AlanMunn no, MS Word, see the transcript of this chat...

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz It was a joke.

@AlainMatthes While all systems I know work fine with such files, they are a pain to work with from any UNIX based shell. So distributing them is often a bad idea. (That's probably the reason CTAN denies it too)

@AlanMunn sorry, I'm currently not really open for humour.

@AlainMatthes Which problem are you trying to fix?

@UlrikeFischer good tip. As soon as I find out how to see the application event log.

> Some Canadian police departments give out "positive tickets" to thank people for doing something good.

@AlanMunn ^^ ooh Canada

@MarcelKrüger I'm trying to integrate LianTze's han library (pgfornament-han) into my pgfornament package. But LianTze changed part of the code and I can't load the library without changing the name.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz try to type "event viewer" in the search panel, or "ereignisanzeige" if the windows is german.

@UlrikeFischer You just have to love microsofts documentation/help: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/error-messages/…

ABSOLUTELY NO F*CKING INFORMATION ON THE SUBJECT!!!!

@UlrikeFischer in the meantime I figured as much. There I have the entry "Microsoft Office Alerts" which holds absolutely no information on any of the crashes.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz does LibreOffice Writer open it?

@PauloCereda I don't have admin rights, so I can't install libre. But Word crashes on any new file (another crash just now!)

@AlainMatthes So you want to upload a changed version of existing files to CTAN? I have a feeling that you will get more opposition then just for the names... Especially what happens if both versions are loaded? Did you reach out to LianTze to ensure that your versions are consistent? Anyway, if you really want to, you can just use a longer prefix. Maybe pgfornament-?

@AlainMatthes that is OS dependent you can do that in any posix (linux/mac) etc filesystem but it's a bit antisocial as it will catch users out with ls -xyz being taken as the option named xyz not the file (you can avoid that but many users and scripts willtrip up)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Hi! As much as I hate Word, it has been a lot of time since it crashed so spectacularly on me. Something is wrong over there --- even my installation under Wine is more or less usable.

@Rmano you don't say? :) Yes, something is very wrong here. I figured as much. But 10 crashes on a single day. Crashing because you it lost focus and regained it. One should think that this bugware should be more stable.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Normally the problem is that a round trip of a .docx document between two even minor different Word versions (for example, a minor release or a change in language) makes all images and formatting go around like crazy...

@Rmano well, at this point I could actually live with that.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz its clearly a local problem with your installation, are you sure you are putting the blame in the right place.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Yes :). Mine (University 365 license) works ok in a virtual machine. Although I normally cheat and do all my editing in LibreOffice...

@DavidCarlisle I have no idea.

@MarcelKrüger We did some tests and it worked very well because the loaded file was the one in the package folder.

@DavidCarlisle Yes, I understand there are problems with Windows.

@AlainMatthes no I meant you will get problems on linux with such a filename

$ echo hello > '-xyz'

$ ls -xyz
ls: unknown option -- y
Try 'ls --help' for more information.

$ ls -- -xyz
-xyz

@PauloCereda :)

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@AlainMatthes ^^^ you can guard the special filenames with -- and other ways but the vast majority of scripts expecting a filename will do the ls -xyz version and fail if the filename starts with -

@DavidCarlisle ok I need to find another solution !

@AlainMatthes Who are "we" in this context? Also my concern wasn't that your files are not loaded, but that users of pgfornament-han probably want to load the real pgfornament-han package and not some modified files.

@PauloCereda -ooh

@MarcelKrüger LianTze and me. The problem is complex because pgfornament-han uses pgfornament. It even changes some of my macros. If my package is too much modified, his doesn't work anymore.

@AlainMatthes she's a she "hers" not "his" :-)

@DavidCarlisle Sorry I always make the same mistake

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@AlainMatthes I see. If you work together with LianTze anyway, can't she just adjust the normal files to incorporate your changes?

@AlainMatthes French and German give trick fake genders to inanimate objects to confuse the English, we just give genders to people (and ships:-) so it should be easier!

@DavidCarlisle :)

@DavidCarlisle yes, in that case using ./-xyz is safer, although if possible is better to avoid that kind of filenames (like using space, I think).

@DavidCarlisle And whales.

@Rmano sure if you know it is there, but it is the million scripts you have that say somecommand * expecting to pick up all the files in the directory that then fail.

@AlanMunn there she blows....

@DavidCarlisle yes, true.

@AlanMunn ooh Wales

@MarcelKrüger I have time to find a solution. LianTze doesn't.

@PauloCereda For some English speakers these words are not identically pronounced. (I'm not one of them, though.)

@AlanMunn oh

We could use Cymru as it's easier

Welsh is so easy

I miss cfr <3

@PauloCereda I was thinking the same

@DavidCarlisle Yes but then you change the gender of the possessive with the owner and not the object and the problem is back... ;-)

@JosephWright :)

@PauloCereda this doesn't really work written down, you have to hear it, but anyway: How do you get two whales in a mini?

@DavidCarlisle no idea :)

Drive down the M4.

@DavidCarlisle Cross the Severn Bridge?

@AlanMunn close enough:-)

@DavidCarlisle LOL

OOH I GET NOW

We hwyadens are very good at Welsh stuff

@DavidCarlisle Oh my!

@DavidCarlisle how do you make a Brazilian jump in the Thames?

@PauloCereda push him?

@DavidCarlisle easier, tell him it's against the law. :)

@JosephWright LOL

@JosephWright It's much easier to understand with the subtitles.

@DavidCarlisle -- not to cars? (genders, I mean.) They're very like ships.

@barbarabeeton not usually.

@barbarabeeton definitely an airplane is a "she" for all aviatic people, isn't it?

@yo' -- Yes, but I guessed that @DavidCarlisle would be more likely to have a car than an airplane.

@yo' not in normal conversations about commercial flights, you would refer to a plane as "it" only perhaps in single seater planes where the pilot has special attachment to a specific plane might be referred to by gender and name

@DavidCarlisle that's why I specified aviatic people :)

@barbarabeeton Given the British things on 4 wheels have the driver's seat on the wrong site, are they even called cars?

This morning's sad news flash -- a tiger at the Bronx Zoo has caught the COVID-19 virus from an asymptomatic zookeeper. So all cat lovers and keepers, practice social distancing.

@barbarabeeton but that complicates @PauloCereda's advice above.

@barbarabeeton yeah, I saw news like that before :( There also seem to be few cases of dogs having symptoms... :(

@DavidCarlisle -- Aaarrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

@barbarabeeton oh no

@AlanMunn -- Memories of the Severn Bridge: drive onto the bridge in our rental car, start noisy hailstorm; reach the other side, stop hailstorm. (We left Wales by another route.)

ooh London bridge is falling down

@barbarabeeton :) Memories of a holiday in Wales: 7 days of rain.

@AlanMunn -- We only encountered a gentle mist. Very atmospheric. Views softened like they are in the Smoky Mountains. (Wales is someplace I'd like to go back to.)

My machine is named Cardiff. :)

Well, was named Cardiff. Now it's called Niepokalanów. :)

@DavidCarlisle I think the 'not usually' applies to all modes of transport. Using 'she/her' with them usually requires some context of affection, usually on the part of the owner or someone closely related to it. (Discounting, of course, people who actually name their cars, in which case the pronoun matches the name.)

A surfing cat: twitter.com/dodo/status/1247177240489664513

@AlanMunn yes

@PauloCereda Knowing how much cats love water, it should be terrified

@CarLaTeX quite!

@DavidCarlisle Is there a way to have a math font sizes in an environment? \DeclareMathSizes is global. Is there a way to apply it locally?

@AlanMunn -- Counterexample: We have two cars, both named after male dragons. But we still refer to them as "she". (In my case, this is probably influenced by the fact that my father was navy. In some things, I don't claim to be logical.)

@CarLaTeX -- We used to have a cat that liked nothing more than to stalk back and forth on the edge of the bathtub (when someone was in it), and from time to time he'd dip a paw in. Fortunately, his balance was good, and he never fell in. Since he had very long fur, he would have been a really pathetic scrawny mess if he had gotten all wet.

@barbarabeeton He thought to find fishes :)

@AlanMunn -- If this had been necessary in the environment in which I used to work, I would have embedded it in \text{\huge$...$} since every available size had compatible math font sizes defined properly. (But that's not a universal practice.)

@CarLaTeX -- Quite possibly, but he never found any. (It did take me a while to get used to it though. He still had claws.)

@barbarabeeton :)

@AlanMunn it doesnt really have to be global, you just need to set the fonts locally, I could suggest some code later if needed but Im on a call for the next hour

Being fed up with Word has its upsides. I think I can get the equal signs splitting code in expkv (and hence in \keys_parse:NNn) to around 80% on average compared to the current run-time.

I'm pretty sure the \keys_parse:NNn can be even a bit faster, as it doesn't resplit for the two-equal signs case but just throws an error.

The code looks pretty messy though and needs 31 lines more :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz /duck hug

The code:

\def\mysplitateq#1#2{\endgroup
\long\def\mysplitateq##1%
  {%
    \my@splitateq{\ekv@mark##1}%
  }%
\long\def\my@splitateq##1%
  {%
    \my@split@eq@other##1\ekv@nil\ekv@mark\my@split@eq@other@a
      =\ekv@mark\my@split@eq@active\ekv@stop
  }%
\long\def\my@split@eq@other##1=##2\ekv@mark##3##4\ekv@stop
  {%
    ##3{##1}\ekv@mark##2%
  }%
\long\def\my@split@eq@other@a##1##2\ekv@nil
  {%
    \my@split@eq@other@active##1\ekv@nil\ekv@mark\my@split@eq@other@active@a
      #2\ekv@mark\my@split@eq@other@b\ekv@stop##2\ekv@stop

Currently just in an evaluation form in which I can benchmark it, it misses the forwarding to the next parsing steps and instead has some commented test-strings.

@PauloCereda /killer rabbit hug, slowly chewing on the duck

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz awww <3 OH NO! HELP!!! (")>/

@PauloCereda /munch, munch, munch

@PauloCereda /realising the duck is a friend and spitting it out

What a rollercoaster of emotions

> Eating ice cream for breakfast can increase mental alertness.

ooh ice cream

@barbarabeeton twitter.com/DanielRosney/status/1247085420296450049

The sign language lady in the corner making the bunny ear thingy is adorable

@PauloCereda -- New Zealand is fortunate to have such an empathetic and competent head of state.

@barbarabeeton our PM is in intensive care....

@DavidCarlisle -- Yes, heard that a bit ago on the radio. Whatever one thinks of his governing style or policies, it's unfortunate. Let's hope his "backup" is up to speed.