Bug#311424: checking for write18 (was: Reminder: Bugs to look at)

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> wrote:

>> #311424: \usepackage{epstopdf} does not create pdf files
>>          did we ever investigate this, is it an upstream issue?  Don't
>>          remember (maybe during my sabbatical?).
>
>>From the bug reports last entry:
> I have realized the cause of the problem. To enable pdf creation on the
> fly, the `\write18' has to be enabled via the command line option:
> -shell-escape of pdflatex
> (example: pdflatex -shell-escape test.tex) or via the configuration file
> `texmf.cnf': (shell_escape = 1) as it is stated in the epstopdf.sty
> file.
> However one should not expect the user to dig into the sty files.
>
> Therefor I suggest an appropriate error message, when the epstopdf
> packages is used in latex documents, but `\write18' is disabled. In
> addition an example of how to enable it (example: pdflatex -shell-escape
> test.tex) would be very helpful.

Does anybody on the list know how to check whether \write18 is enabled
in a TeX document?

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer