First hack at new ruby-aware texexec script for linux/unix

First hack at new ruby-aware texexec script for linux/unix

[gnwiii]

There are two classes of users:

1) most error messages are ignored up to and including the ones that
promise global thermonuclear war if you click on "Yes", or

2) minor warnings bring all work to a halt until explained.

In honor of the latter class, who ask about the suggestion to use
"texstart texexec.rb ..."
when running context, the following script may be helpful.

TeX Live on linux runs texexec, etc. via a shell script that is linked
to the names of various
perl utilities.  Here is my first cut at a version that tries to use
the ruby scripts:

 ------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# use ruby and texmfstart.rb or perl
# to use: link to the names of ConTeXt scripts

what=`echo $0 | sed 's@.*/@@'`

case $what in
texmfstart|texexec|pstopdf|textools|texutil)
  p=`kpsewhich -format=texmfscripts $what.rb`
  { test -n "$p" && test -f "$p"; } \
   || { echo "\`$what.rb' not found."; exit 1; }
  RUBYLIB="${RUBYLIB:-${p%/*}}"
  export RUBYLIB
  exec ruby "$p" ${1+"$@"}
  ;;
*)
  p=`kpsewhich -format=texmfscripts $what.pl`
  { test -n "$p" && test -f "$p"; } \
   || { echo "\`$what.pl' not found."; exit 1; }
  exec perl "$p" ${1+"$@"}
  ;;
esac
 -------------------------------------------------------

This version runs the ruby scripts directly, rather than the suggested
form, e.g., "texfmstart pstopdf.rb file.ps".  I have no idea if that
is intended to work -- it did in my very simple tests .  I'm not sure
the RUBYLIB line is needed.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056@chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia

Re: First hack at new ruby-aware texexec script for linux/unix

[Hans Hagen]

gnwiii@gmail.com wrote:
> This version runs the ruby scripts directly, rather than the suggested
> form, e.g., "texfmstart pstopdf.rb file.ps".  I have no idea if that
> is intended to work -- it did in my very simple tests .  I'm not sure
> the RUBYLIB line is needed.
>   
when you use texmfstart to launch a script, no rubylib is needed because  libraries are loaded relative to the script; texmfstart itself (now) ships with the libraries that it needs embedded); when using the direct call (ruby <path>/texexec as from your script) should work equally well 

the reason why i made texmfstart are: 

- we don't need stubs for all scripts, which is esp handy when scripts bare names that may conflict with other things in ones path 

- texmfstart internally uses kpsewhich to locate the script (unless it is configured to use its internal kpse library and/or talks to kpse server); it tries hard to cache and carry over results which (depending on the machine and trees uses - large trees slow down kpsewhich) means that nested runs are faster, e.g. when texmfstart is used to start texexec, a nested texexec run starts up faster) 

- another reason why i made texmfstart is that it makes me less dependent of changes in tds (the change from /context/scripts/ruby to scripts/context/ruby in combination with different kpsewhich fmt flags gave me so much trouble (read: i had to use different stubs depending on what version of tes and kpsewhich were used and they were not always in sync) that i decided that a consistent 'texmfstart ...' stub was safest for me

- in the meantime texmfstart does a few more things, like tree initialixation and kpse expansion, think of: 

texmfstart xsltproc kpse:a.xsl --output=b.xml c.xml 

which will expand kpse: to the path as reported by kpsehwich. 

(here i use a mix: when running e.g. from other scripts or from editors i alwayss use "texmfstart scriptname" but when i run in the console i just use scriptname because windows can associate the .rb suffix with ruby (on unix one has to remove the suffix) 

it's all a matter of what suits best 

Hans 

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                          Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
              Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
     tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                             | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------