Re: texi2dvi runs forever

[Marius Hofert]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for taking care about this.

Indeed, my scripts now use --max-iterations=7 :-)
Nevertheless, if a reference is found, it should (clearly) not be the
goal to run until max-iterations (which is why I wanted to report on
this).

Cheers,
Marius



On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Karl Berry <address@hidden> wrote:
>     Just some reference: \textcite{myfoo}
>     ...
>     \usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex}
>     ...
>     2) Run it with texi2dvi -p mwe.tex
>     => the script never stops
>
> Thanks for the report.  The issue is specific to biblatex, so I'll cc
> Philip for advice.  (Philip, the original mail is at
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2014-04/msg00030.html.
> Although the given example uses a koma-script class, I don't believe the
> problem is specific to that.)
>
> Back in August, I was advised
> (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2013-08/msg00044.html) to
> check for
>   biblatex.*(re)run
> in the .log file, and if it was there, take it at its word.
>
> Now, I can easily omit that check.  Then texi2dvi would fall back to
> checking to see if the xref files it knows about have changed (and if
> they haven't changed, then give up).  The question is, is that
> sufficient for biblatex?  In the present case, it would be checking
> these three files (I named the test file bibunref.tex):
>     bib.bib
>     bibunref-blx.bib
>     bibunref.aux
>
> I see there is also bibunref.run.xml to perhaps be checked?
> And I don't know if other files get created in more complicated
> situations.
>
>
> Anyway, as far as the infinite loop goes: that is clearly bad.  You can
> specify --max-iterations=3 to make it stop after 3 cycles.  The default
> before was infinite; I've just uploaded a new version (to ftp.gnu.org,
> if you want to try it) making the default be 7.  If things haven't
> converged after that many runs, I sincerely doubt they ever will, as a
> practical matter.
>
> Thanks,
> Karl



-- 
Dr. Marius Hofert
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Washington
Lewis Hall 203
URL http://www.math.ethz.ch/~hofertj/