texi2dvi --output and --clean

[Karl Berry]

Hi Akim,

It used to be that  texi2dvi --output someoutfile  implied passing
--clean.  That was eliminated at some point in (I'm assuming) your
massive rewrites.  Right now, if the call is
  texi2dvi --output some.out foo.tex
the output remains in foo.dvi and is not moved to some.out.

The comment at --output now reads:
    -o | --out  | --output)
      shift
      # Make it absolute, just in case we also have --clean, or whatever.
      oname=`absolute "$1"`;;

which seems that it was intentional to no longer imply --clean.
But why?  Do you have any recollection?  Or maybe I am reading too much
into that comment.  The --help string was never changed, and has always
said "implies --clean".

It is easy enough to restore implying clean (if tidy has not been
specified, I suppose).  It is also feasible, I think, to make --output
work in --build=local mode, e.g., my initial attempt at a patch below.

If you have any insight, that would be great.  Otherwise, I guess I'll
go back to implying --clean.

Also ... do you still use texi2dvi for processing latex documents in all
those fancy ways?  Hevea, tex4ht, etc.?  Just wondering.

Thanks,
karl


--- texi2dvi.~1.169.~   2012-01-07 09:16:18.000000000 -0800
+++ texi2dvi    2012-01-07 16:43:46.000000000 -0800
@@ -681,6 +681,8 @@ move_to_dest ()
 {
-  # If we built in place, there is nothing to install, leave.
-  case $tidy:$oname in
-    false:) return;;
-  esac
+#  echo "move_to_dest $*, tidy=$tidy, oname=$oname"
+
+#  # If we built in place, there is nothing to install, leave.
+#  case $tidy:$oname in
+#    false:) return;;
+#  esac
 
@@ -699,5 +701,8 @@ move_to_dest ()
               destfile=$destdir/$file;;
-      *:*)    destfile=`output_base_name "$file"`
+      true:*) destfile=`output_base_name "$file"`
               destdir=`dirname "$destfile"`;;
+      false:*) destfile=$oname
+               destdir=`dirname "$destfile"`;;
     esac
+ 
     # We want to compare the source location and the output location,