[tex-live] serious problem with mktextfm or mktexdir and `~'

[Werner LEMBERG]

It seems that mktexdir (or mktextfm) doesn't handle `~' properly in
directory names.  For example, running

  mktextfm larm1200

I get the error

  mktextfm: mktexdir ~/.texlive2008/texmf-var/fonts/tfm/lh/lh-t2a failed.

And indeed: mktexdir doesn't expand `~' to my home directory but
creates a directory called `~/.texlive2008/...' within my home
directory.  On the other hand, running

  mktexdir ~/foo

properly expands the tilde...  It looks like a missing `eval'
somewhere in the code.

Since such a problem must have been detected much earlier I wonder
whether something different could cause this...

I'm using the current SVN TeXLive version, running on a SuSE 10.2
GNU/Linux box, with no special customization.


    Werner