Re: tilde in file names, still a problem

[Karl Berry]

    calling texi2dvi /path/with~tilde/in/the/path.texi breaks 

I installed the patch below (modulo documentation, etc.) to support tildes.  
There's an undocumented -~ option to avoid all this madness in case it's
totally broken.  Hope none of these literal tildes mess anything up.

More special characters could be supported, but then we'd have to assume
a matching texinfo.tex (then -~ could come in useful).  Plus, I've
already spent too long on this for today.

In any case, I advise using texi2dvi's tidy mode when special characters
are a concern.  It will work with a wider range of characters in the
directory portion, at least.  Besides being cleaner in general.

Let me know if problems, of course.

--- texi2dvi.~1.137.~   2008-12-13 06:36:52.000000000 -0800
+++ texi2dvi    2009-03-15 11:51:10.000000000 -0700
@@ -47,2 +47,3 @@ action=compile
 batch=false     # true for batch mode
+catcode_special=true
 debug=false
@@ -929,8 +935,23 @@ run_tex ()
     # from the user.  Close its stdin to make it impossible.
-    cmd="$cmd </dev/null '${escape}nonstopmode' '${escape}input'"
+    cmd="$cmd </dev/null '${escape}nonstopmode'"
   fi
 
-  # we'd like to handle arbitrary input file names, such as a~b.tex.
-  # This isn't a general way to do it :), though it does work, kind of.
-  # cmd="$cmd '${escape}catcode126=12 \input '"
+  # we'd like to handle arbitrary input file names, especially
+  # foo~bar/a~b.tex, since Debian likes ~ characters.
+  if $catcode_special; then
+    # $normaltilde is just to reduce line length in this source file.
+    # The idea is to define \normaltilde as a catcode other ~ character,
+    # then make the active ~ be equivalent to that, instead of the plain
+    # TeX tie.  Then when the active ~ appears in the filename, it will
+    # be expanded to itself, as far as \input will see.  (This is the
+    # same thing that texinfo.tex does in general, BTW.)
+    normaltilde="${escape}catcode126=12 ${escape}def${escape}normaltilde{~}"
+    cmd="$cmd '$normaltilde${escape}catcode126=13 ${escape}let~\normaltilde '"
+  fi
+  # Other special (non-active) characters could be supported by
+  # resetting their catcodes to other on the command line and changing
+  # texinfo.tex to initialize everything to plain catcodes.  Maybe someday.
+  
+  # append the \input command.
+  cmd="$cmd '${escape}input'"
 
@@ -949,3 +970,3 @@ run_tex ()
   case $tidy:`func_dirname "$in_input"` in
-    true:*["$space$tab$newline\"#\$%\\^_{}"]*)
+    true:*["$space$tab$newline\"#\$%\\^_{}~"]*)
       _run_tex_file_name=`basename "$in_input"`