Re: Can't get texmfstart to work

[Sanjoy Mahajan <sanjoy@mrao.cam.ac.uk>]

> >  file:line:error style messages enabled.
> >   
> i've never seen that one

It's very useful.  Here's a sample run of pdftex with that option,
which makes the error output match the format that most language
compilers use (e.g. gcc).

So you can run tex in an Emacs *compilation* buffer (with M-x
compile<CR>) and Emacs can parse all the errors (C-x `) and take you
to them one by one.

  $ pdftex --file-line-error-style -interaction nonstopmode c
  This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.30.6-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.5)
   file:line:error style messages enabled.
  entering extended mode
  (./c.tex
  ./c.tex:4: Undefined control sequence.
  l.4 \abc

  [1{/var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}] )
  (see the transcript file for additional
  information)</usr/share/texmf-tetex/fon
  ts/type1/bluesky/cm/cmr10.pfb>
  Output written on c.pdf (1 page, 5134 bytes).
  Transcript written on c.log.

-Sanjoy

`Never underestimate the evil of which men of power are capable.'
         --Bertrand Russell, _War Crimes in Vietnam_, chapter 1.