[tex-live] TL2018 runscript problem

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2018-06-18 at 11:05:40 +0300, Linas Stonys wrote:

 > Hi,
 > runscript with my local programs doesn't work any more.
 > They are in TEXMFLOCAL and used to work well with TL2016. Now I'm getting
 > error:
 > d:\texroot\2018\bin\win32\runscript.tlu:815: d:\texroot\2018\bin\win32\
 > runscript.tlu:770: no appropriate script or program found: setmd5info
 >  Problem appears because of  os.setenv('TEXMF', TEXMFDIST):
 > 
 > """""""""""""""""
 > if not ARGV then
 >   os.setenv('TEXMF', TEXMFDIST)
 >   local extlist =
 > '.tlu;.texlua;.pl;.lua;.rb;.py;.tcl;.jar;.vbs;.js;.bat;.cmd;\0'
 >   local progfullname = search_path(progname, BINDIR, '.tlu;.bat;.cmd') or
 >                        assert(find_texmfscript(progname, extlist))
 >   os.setenv('TEXMF', nil)
 > """""""""""""""""
 > 
 > Linas

Dear Linas,
I investigated a bit and the SVN history led me to the message below.
It explains the reason of the change.

It seems to be quite inconvenient at a first glance if you can't
maintain your scripts in TEXMFLOCAL anymore.  But because you had to
create the wrappers/symlinks in bin/<platform> each year again and
again it wasn't very convenient in the past either.

A better solution is to create a TDS-compliant tree somewhere else

  bin/win32
  bin/x68_64-linux
  texmf-dist/scripts/vtex
  texmf-dist/scripts/linas

and to maintain your scripts there.  bin/win32 should only contain the
<script>.exe files but not runscript.dll or runscript.tlu.  For Linux
create relative symlinks to your scripts in bin/x68_64-linux.

Then create a .tar file of this tree and extract it in TEXMFROOT.

Another approach is to use version control tools.  Check out your
files in texlive/2018.  Next year copy texlive/2018/.svn to
texlive/2019 and run "svn update", for example.  I'm using SVN in
order to maintain configuration files for Bash, Emacs, X11,... on
various machines and it turned out to be more convenient than anything
else.

Regards,
  Reinhard

------- start of forwarded message -------
| From: Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org>
| Subject: windows wrapper not using TEXMFHOME?
| Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 23:09:43 GMT
| 
| I think Joseph makes a good point here. Should w32_wrapper be changed to
| only look in the system tree, as is the behavior on Unix? --thanks, karl.
| 
| Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 07:51:35 +0000
| From: Joseph Wright <joseph.wright at morningstar2.co.uk>
| To: Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org>
| Subject: Re: l3build script in tl
| 
| Oh, by the way, we noticed that there's a difference between Windows and 
| *nix in handling 'local' installs. On *nix, TL uses a simple symlink 
| from <root>/bin/<platform>/<name> to 
| <root>/texmf-dist/scripts/<name>/<name>.<whatever>, so you only ever get 
| the version in the managed tree.
| 
| On Windows, <root>/bin/<platform>/<name>.exe uses a 'runner' which will
| pick up ~/texmf/scripts/<name>/<name>.<whatever> if it exists, in
| preference to <root>/texmf-dist/scripts/<name>/<name>.<whatever>.
| 
| We ...  wondered if Windows should be brought into line? (Makes testing
| a little more 'interesting' but such is life.)
| 
| Joseph

------- end of forwarded message -------
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover                    mailto:reinhard.kotucha at web.de
------------------------------------------------------------------