Re: texi2dvi: set -e, use tar

[Akim Demaille]

>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

 >> From: Akim Demaille <address@hidden>
 >> Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:51:14 +0100

 > Thanks.

 >> Stop using the idiom "test && action" in favor of "if test; then
 >> action; fi".

 > Why? does it do any harm in some situations?

With set -e it cannot be used (unless you want to assert something)
since it is likely to exit with failure.

 >> -    cp $xref_files_orig "$work_bak"
 >> +    # The following line improves `cp $xref_files_orig "$work_bak"'
 >> +    # by preserving the directory parts.  Think of
 >> +    # cp chap1/main.aux chap2/main.aux $work_bak.
 >> +    tar cf - $xref_files_orig | (cd "$work_bak" && tar xf -)

 > Can you please describe the situation where texi2dvi is run on a
 > directory tree like the comment above suggests?  I didn't think this
 > could happen.

well, how about this:

~/src/thl % grep include th-langage.tex                         nostromo Err 1
% \includecomment{}%
% \includecomment{inprogress}
\include{THL.1/langages}
\include{THL.1/regexp}
\include{THL.1/automates}
\include{THL.1/grammaires}
\include{THL.1/cfg}
\include{THL.1/parsage}
\include{THL.1/anldet}
\include{THL.1/normalisation}
\include{THL.2/pda}
\include{THL.2/cfg}
\include{THL.2/decidability}
\include{THL.2/tabulation}
\include{THL.2/tag}

That's the very document that behaved weirdly.  See that there are two
cfg.tex.


 > The problem with this replacement is that on non-Posix platforms it
 > requires yet another ported utility (Tar) and a very reliable support
 > in the shell for Posix-style (command...) semantics.  I think we
 > should consider the merits and demerits of this.

Are you seriously telling me that tar might not be available on some
platform we want to support?