Re: Output to directory patch

[Ikumi Keita]

Hi Al,

>>>>> Al Haji-Ali <abdo.haji.ali@gmail.com> writes:
> Let me try to explain what my concern is.

Thank you for explanation, now I see what you were worrying.

1. I think that it isn't necessary to cater particularly for user's
custom call on `TeX-command-default' etc. because those functions are
hardly useful when their argument is not the result of
`TeX-{master,region}-file'.

> If the only valid values of file-fn in TeX-command are TeX-master-file
> or TeX-region-file, then my "solution" is unnecessary in this case and
> I can inspect TeX-current-process-region-p to figure out the source.
> But I hasten to add that this should be reflected in the documentation
> of TeX-command and there should be an error when the argument is
> different from these two values

It must be legitimate to assume that the only valid values of file-fn in
TeX-command are `TeX-master-file' or `TeX-region-file' for similar
reason, although it's true that the doc string of `TeX-command' is a bit
obscure in the restriction about the FILE-FN argument.

2. I think it isn't worth distinguishing whether the call was on region
file or not. The cost is too high as your implementation shows.
Reasonable treatment should be to supply "--output-dir" option for both
whole document typeset and region typeset when `TeX-output-dir' is
non-nil. Then `TeX-get-command-filename' can just insert
`TeX-output-dir' just before the basename of the file name with output
extension, regardless of its argument.

>> I understand your aim, but my concern here are reliability and
>> robustness of `TeX-master-file' and `TeX-region-file'. They are at the
>> central part of AUCTeX, so it's difficult to incorporate changes which
>> have possibility to make them unstable. I think that AUCTeX should only
>> accept modification of `TeX-{master,region}-file' which are proved to be
>> robust.
> I completely agree with you on this point. Robustness of these methods
> should be the top priority. I am hoping that even with my changes such
> robustness can be achieved (although I understand your hesitation
> given my track record with bugs so far :) ).

> As promised, here is the new patch (against 72e645f15df) with all the fixes.

> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/haji-ali/auctex/tex-build-only/etc/auctex-output-dir.patch

I'll take a look, but I'm not currently inclined to incorporate it...
(Sorry, Uwe.)

Regards,
Ikumi Keita