Dependencies for latex/latex-bin

[Joseph Wright]

On 18/02/2024 18:27, Karl Berry wrote:

>      For latex-bin, however, there are several historical entries I think
>      could go:
>      depend atbegshi
>      depend atveryend
> 
> These are still used. I build the formats with -recorder to determine
> which packages are used, and thus should be the dependencies. Although
> atbegshi.sty and atveryend.sty do not show up in the log, they do show
> up in the recorder output. Read with \openin for some reason, maybe?
> I didn't investigate.

Read using \(pdf)filesize to do file name normalisation/check if the 
files exist. As such, this code should work whether or not the files are 
available. (This is all in a block that is intended to allow LaTeX to 
block loading of the two packages, so insisting they are installed is no 
exactly the plan!)

I *think* everything should work even if the files are added to the TeX 
system after the format is built: I'll see if anyone else from the team 
disagrees.

>      At the same time, I'd say
>      depend amsmath
>      should be added: the team list this as a required part of a LaTeX setup,
>      alongside e.g. graphics.
> 
> amsmath is already in collection-latex, along with tools, psnfss, babel,
> and the other "required" (a la ctan:macros/latex/required) packages.
> 
> graphics, and only graphics, is a dependency of latex-bin only because,
> as I recall, there were bug reports (from tinytex?) when it was absent,
> since graphics is (as I recall) where the backend driver stuff gets
> instantiated when needed.

Like I said, I'm not really clear on what counts for latex-bin: I can 
live with this.

Joseph