Re: [AUCTeX-devel] Sharing value of a variable between all files of the same document

[Mosè Giordano]

Hi Matt,

2016-04-17 13:40 GMT+02:00 Matthew Leach <address@hidden>:
> Mosè Giordano <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Hi Matt,
>
> Hi Mosè,
>
>> 2016-04-16 23:57 GMT+02:00 Matthew Leach <address@hidden>:
>>> Would `TeX-document-variables' be stored exclusively in the TeX-master's
>>> auto-save file or all the auto-save files for a document?  If it is the
>>> latter, we would need to ensure the alists are synchronised for all
>>> auto-save files in a document, do you know of an easy way to do this?
>>
>> No no, only in master's auto-save file.
>
> That's good.  I think the other way would have been rather difficult.
>
>>>> , with the name of a variable as key and its value as value.  This
>>>> should be used only for certain variables, above all (or only) those
>>>> related to TeXing options (engine, extra options,
>>>> `ConTeXt-Mark-version', etc).
>>>
>>> How would the user set and edit a variable document wide?  Would we
>>> provide a new interactive setter function that would write that to the
>>> `TeX-document-variables' alist?
>>
>> My simple idea was to set the variables as usual (either manually or
>> with `add-file-local-variable', I have no new special tool in mind),
>> but with this new framework users need to set them only once in the
>> master file, instead of every single file part of the document.
>
> That sounds reasonable.  I presume that if a user wanted to change an
> already-set variable, they would change it as normal in the TeX-master
> file and our code to write the auto-save file would handle this?
>
>>>> Every function that needs to access those variable should check this
>>>> alist first fallbacking onto the (local) value of the variable if not
>>>> present in `TeX-document-variables'.  We can define a function similar
>>>> to `TeX-process-get-variable' to get the value of the variable from
>>>> the alist.
>>>
>>> Rather than modifying all the places where these values are accessed,
>>> couldn't we check the alist and set the buffer-local variables when a
>>> buffer is loaded?  When reading the alist, we could exclude variables
>>> that we don't allow.
>>
>> Sounds reasonable.  Actually, you suggested me the idea of not
>> creating a new alist, but rather defining a new function that sets the
>> relevant variables locally.  Much like `TeX-add-symbols' or
>> `LaTeX-add-environments'.
>
> Ah, I see.  Yes I think that could work quite well.  Could this be
> defined with TeX-auto-add-type or would we need to define a new macro?
>
>> I can try and write down a proof-of-concept, but probably later next
>> week.
>
> That sounds good - I shall wait and see :-).

please find attached my proposal.  It's only a proof-of-concept to show
how my idea works, it should then be extended to include other options
(for example, `TeX-engine', `TeX-PDF-mode', `TeX-PDF-from-DVI',
`ConTeXt-Mark-version', please suggest other relevant variables).

Bye,
Mosè

shared-variable.diff
Description: Text document