Using tlmgr.bat under bash on MS-Windows

[Zdenek Wagner]

po 22. 11. 2021 v 15:30 odesílatel Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute)
<P.Taylor at hellenic-institute.uk> napsal:
>
> On 22/11/2021 14:13, George N. White III wrote:
>
> [I]n native linux you can have a PDF document open in a
> linux viewer and generate a new version. For  Windows Adobe viewers you
> have to close the PDF view first.
>
> It is unclear to me what the underlying reason for this discrepancy is.  Using (e.g.,) MS Word, I can save an MS Word document as Adobe PDF.  If the previously-saved version is open in Adobe Acrobat (or in Adobe Acrobat Reader), MS Word forces the PDF to close and then re-opens the newly-saved version.  It seems to me that the TeX sub-system ought to be able to accomplish the same thing.
> --
The whole philosophy of file system access is different. In Windows
the open file is locked and other applications are not allowed to
modify it, hence the TeX drivers are not allowed to write a PDF if a
previous version is open. In Linux overwriteing of a file is allowed
even if it is currently open. There are three scenarios:

1. The application monitors the file, notices that it was modified and
loads a new version automatically
2. The application monitors the file and if a modification was
detected, it asks the user whether to reload the file
3. The application stil works with the original file (technically it
has its own inode in memory)

Scenario 3 has its advantages. Once I downloaded a few videos and
tried to view them and decide whether I want to keep them on my
computer or delete them. I decided to delete all but the one currently
open in the viewer but by mistake I deleted the whole directory. I
paused the viewer not to loose the one video. Linux tools allow me to
obtain that internal inode and using it copy the deleted file from the
deleted directory to another location.

To summarize: in Linux the PDF creating application thus overwrites
the file assuming that the viewer can monitor it and reload. In
Windows the PDF creator must know in which application the PDF is open
and must know how to communicate with it. Of course, it is possible to
develop a viewer which will emulate the Linux way even in windows but
it is a matter of the viewer.


> Philip Taylor

Zdeněk Wagner
http://ttsm.icpf.cas.cz/team/wagner.shtml