TeX called improperly

TeX called improperly

[Steve Throckmorton]

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In GNU Emacs 21.1.1 (i386-msvc-windows98.2222)
 of 2001-10-22 on buffy
configured using `configure --with-msvc (12.00)'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: enu
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

I have encountered two separate problems calling utilities from within
TeX mode.  I was able to fix/workaround each with a modification to
the file tex-mode.el .

One problem is that attempts to call a dvi viewer were failing because
emacs was appending an ampersand ('&') to the .dvi filename in a vain
attempt to make Win98 run the viewer in background.  I changed the
function tex-print to call tex-send-command with nil (instead of
t, of course) passed to the optional argument 'background'.

The other problem I had was that emacs was calling tex.exe with the
option string (tex-start-options-string), which I set within 
buffer with the Local Variables feature, in quotes ("").  This caused
the options to be ignored by TeX.  I discovered that the function
tex-start-tex was running tex-start-options-string through some
function called shell-quote-argument, which caused the quotes to
appear in the command line.  I deleted the call to
shell-quote-argument, and that seemed to fix things for me.

It seems obvious to me that the first problem is Windows-specific.  I
have no idea about the options-string-in-quotes problem, though.



Recent input:
C-g C-x k <return> M-x r e p o r t - e <tab> <retu
rn>

Recent messages:
(C:\PROGRAM FILES\EMACS\EMACS-21.1\BIN\EMACS.EXE)
Loading smtpmail...done
Loading rmail...done
Counting messages...done
POP password: 
rmail-get-pop-password: Quit
Loading emacsbug...done

Re: TeX called improperly

[Richard Stallman]

    The other problem I had was that emacs was calling tex.exe with the
    option string (tex-start-options-string), which I set within 
    buffer with the Local Variables feature, in quotes ("").  This caused
    the options to be ignored by TeX.

What value did you use?  What job was it meant to accomplish?

Re: TeX called improperly

[Steve Throckmorton]

   Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 14:17:58 -0600 (MDT)
   X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@aztec using -f
   From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
   CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
   Reply-to: rms@gnu.org
   X-RCPT-TO: <steve@doodlebeth.com>
   X-UIDL: 315135886

       The other problem I had was that emacs was calling tex.exe with the
       option string (tex-start-options-string), which I set within 
       buffer with the Local Variables feature, in quotes ("").  This caused
       the options to be ignored by TeX.

   What value did you use?  What job was it meant to accomplish?


Here is the entire Local Variables section I am using for this file:


%Local Variables:
%mode:tex
%mode:auto-fill
%tex-command:"c:\\texmf\\miktex\\bin\\tex "
%tex-start-options-string:"--output-directory=c:\\steve\\tex --interaction=nonstopmode"
%tex-dvi-view-command:"c:\\texmf\\miktex\\bin\\yap.exe -1"
%End:

The version of TeX I am using accepts optional arguments in format:
--option-name=optionsetting

It (gracefully, I must say) ignores the arguments if they are quoted,
which is how Emacs was delivering them on the command line.

Perhaps I'm not supposed to be including quotes when I specify the
string, but default values are quoted, so I did mine too.

Re: TeX called improperly

[Kai Großjohann]

steve@doodlebeth.com (Steve Throckmorton) writes:

> The other problem I had was that emacs was calling tex.exe with the
> option string (tex-start-options-string), which I set within 
> buffer with the Local Variables feature, in quotes ("").  This caused
> the options to be ignored by TeX.  I discovered that the function
> tex-start-tex was running tex-start-options-string through some
> function called shell-quote-argument, which caused the quotes to
> appear in the command line.  I deleted the call to
> shell-quote-argument, and that seemed to fix things for me.

Maybe it would be useful to have a variable tex-start-options-list or
similar which contained a list of strings.  Then you could have put
your various options in there.

Thoughts?

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!