[tex-live] xindy doesn't work on windows

[Joachim Schrod]

Akira Kakuto writes:
> Dear Joachim,
> 
> > Meanwhile I'm still trying to understand the root cause of Ulrike's
> > problem, not having a Windows system where xindy is installed. She
> > writes the problematic value is set in system control -- is it
> > really set there with double quotes? Are quotes part of the env var
> > value that is passed to the Perl script?
> 
> In Unix shell, for example, in
> export VAR="a b"
> double quotes are removed and $VAR==a b, as it should be.
> In cmd.exe, however, after
> set VAR="a b"
> echo %VAR%
> gives
> "a b"
> This is one of peculiar features of cmd.exe.

I understand that and knew that.

> I think xindy.pl can remove the double quotes in ENV's, if they
> exist in MSWin case, before calling tmpnam().

Yes, I think that's worthwile in any case.

What I don't understand is Ulrike's comment:

> But this doesn't help with the problem that xindy fails with the
> default setting of TEMP in the windows system control: I didn't add
> any explicit quotes there. The variable is set as
> "%USERPROFILE%\Lokale Einstellungen\Temp" (without the quotes) in
> system control and imho that is the default set by the windows
> installation.

On the one hand, she tells that the var is set without the quotes. On
the other hand, she tells that xindy still fails in that situation.
But that would mean that quotes in env var values are not the culprit
of the error that Ulrike observed. What I would like to know is: With
the default setting of TEMP -- as described by Ulrike -- does xindy
fail? If yes, is the env var value with or without quotes?

I.e., we have determined we have to care for quotes in a Windows
environment. We should path that. OK.
Does Ulrike actually report more situations where it fails?

That's me wondering where the problem root cause is. Incident handling
is clear: Determine quotes in a Windows environment and care for them.
But is this also a change that cares for the underlying problem? I
don't know if we have enough data to assert that.

Just my thoughts, at 3:45 am, in M-x hack-mode, after programming 17
hours straight through. Take them with a grain of salt. I go to bed
now. :-)

	Joachim

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Joachim Schrod, xindy maintainer. Roedermark, Germany
Email: jschrod at acm.org, http://www.xindy.org/