[352] in SIPB bug reports
Re: No Deal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Mar 8 01:15:25 1989
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 89 00:27:13 EST
From: Bill Sommerfeld <wesommer@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
To: <amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Cc: bjaspan@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, bug-sipb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Andrew Marc Greene's message of Tue, 7 Mar 89 21:51:13 EST,
I want something which fits into the set of tools I am used to working
with.
OK, I agree to the extent that TeX should look for foo, then foo.tex iff
it could not find foo.
I disagree; when running under UNIX, it should NEVER append '.tex' to
a filename typed on a command line under ANY circumstances.
What PC-DOS has to do with this is standardization. I want the same results,
to the extent possible, on any machine, running any lowest-level user
interface (and if that's touching two wires together, or if it's reading
my psi waves, that's what I mean).
This is not standardization; this is dragging the system down to the
level of the lowest common denominator, and I assert (in my jaundiced
view of the world) that dragging a system down to the level of MS-DOS
makes it harder to use on Berkeley UNIX.
Moreover, the fact that the code has '.' hard-coded as the separator
character is itself an indication of a lack of portability; both ITS
and VM/CMS use ' ', not '.', as a separator character in filenames.
As I've stated twice before, the definition of \jobname is simple:
All characters up to but not including the first period.
So, if I name two files "foo.bar.tex" and "foo.quux.tex", they'll both
use a \jobname of "foo"? THIS IS ALSO BROKEN. At the very least, it
should look up to the point of the _LAST_ period, not the _FIRST_
period.
\jobname is a TeX primitive; this means that it is implemented by the
compiled C or Pascal code making up the TeX `kernel'; as it is
compiled code in the machine-dependant part of TeX, it can be
conditionallized based on the naming conventions of the operating
system it is running under.
Barry: the change probably goes someplace in
/mit/sipbsrc/uus/{vs2,rtpc}/tex/Common-TeX/file.c; portions would have
to live in both "more_name()" and also in its callers. The code seems
to be in a fairly stilted, twisted, and, pascal-esque style which
makes it hard to read.
And if you don't like it, you can always set up an alias to mv your
dvi files to a "safe" name. That's where UNIX or even PC-DOS shows
its strength --- and the portability and consistancy of TeX does,
too.
This is not "safe"; if I run TeX on two different files with related
basenames simultaneously, they will be overwritten; this is an example
of where hauling things down to the level of MS-DOS makes things
_harder_ for me on UNIX. [Actually, I would advise against using an
alias; instead, set up a Makefile].
- Bill
