Expansion of variables in texmf.cnf

[frank@kuesterei.ch (Frank Küster)]

Hi all,

while working on a bug report against cjk-latex, I encountered the
following question which I couldn't answer.

If a variable, say T1FONTS, is assigned two times in texmf.cnf, the
second assignment overwrites the first - this is clear. But, is it
possible to use the old value in the new assignment? I mean, is it
possible to do something like the following:

%%% From File: /etc/texmf/texmf.d/75DviPS.cnf
T1FONTS = .;$TEXMF/fonts/type1//
%%% End of File: /etc/texmf/texmf.d/75DviPS.cnf
%%% From File: /etc/texmf/texmf.d/99local.cnf
T1FONTS = $T1FONTS;$TEXMF/fonts/hbf
%%% End of File: /etc/texmf/texmf.d/99local.cnf

Or would we need to do it like this:

t1fonts-tetex = .;$TEXMF/fonts/type1//
t1fonts-cjk = $TEXMF/fonts/hbf
T1FONTS = t1fonts-tetex;t1fonts-cjk

I tried to find it out myself, but am kind of puzzled. I don't really
understand how general search paths (like $TEXMF) interfere with
specialised paths like T1FONTS.

Thank you, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie