Re: btex and etex

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 11:21 PM 9/24/00 +0200, Peter.Andree@t-online.de wrote:
>Hi to all,
>I have an unsolved problem using the ways Hans
>indicated in his book METAFUN. I would like to use the command
>        texexec --mptex myfile.mp
>because of the commands btex $ .... $ etex in the label-part.
>Unfortunately I get all the time the message:
>
>This is MetaPost, Version 0.641 (MiKTeX 1.20e (Snapshot build
>187)) (preloaded mem=plain 2000.9.18)  24 SEP 2000 22:55
>**D:\ModernArt\test-file.mp (D:\ModernArt\test-file.mp
>>> D:\ModernArt\test-file.mp
>>> D:\ModernArt\test-file.mpx
>! Unable to make mpx file. l.3   dotlabel (btex
>                     $\frac{x}{y}$ etex,(50,50));
>The two files given above are one of your source files and an
>auxiliary file I need to read to find out what your btex..etex
>blocks mean. If you don't know why I had trouble, try running it
>manually through MPtoTeX, TeX, and DVItoMP
>
>I can't find the reason. The attempt to try it with TeX failed.
>I'm running WIN 2000, 128 MB RAM, MiKTeX (LaTeX 1999) and
>ConTeXt (Ver. 29.05.2000).

[metafun assumes the latest context, which has a bunch of metapost files]

The btex/etex method is a tricky one. In your case, mpost still tries to
locate an mpx file. 

Try the latest context (esp texexec) since it implements a slightly
different cycle, also taking care of problematic files and name clashes and
so. For miktex, take a look at texexec.rme which has a few new entries
concerning mp, although it should work ok. 

How does 'mpost myfile.mp' perform? That should use the (buggy) method
coded in texmf.cnf. 

Hans 
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