Bug#105830: Please provide a method for packages to register themselves to texdoctk
Thomas Ruedas <tr@geol.ku.dk> wrote:
> I have implemented such a feature as suggested for the local and home
> texmf trees and send you a version of texdoctk to try it out, if you
> want. Comments are welcome.
Great, that looks very good.
> I have informed Thomas Esser about that to learn if he has any concerns,
> but didn't get a reply for about 14 days now, so I assume it's ok with
> him. Nonetheless I do think that this self-identification mechanism
> should be reserved for the site's local and the users' individual texmf
> trees, so that there is a standard database in the shipped teTeX
> distribution which cannot be affected.
Hm, things are a little different when teTeX is installed from a package
of a Linux distribution: TEXMFLOCAL is still for the local admin - so
other TeX packages from the distribution cannot put things there. But
they can, on the other hand, put things into /usr/share/texmf
(TEXMFDIST, if you like), since the package management system has no
problem with files from different packages coexisting (as opposed to the
user who updates teTeX by removing TEXMFDIST and untarring the new
tar.gz).
Therefore, besides TEXMFLOCAL and the users' texmf trees, I'd like to
have the possibility to include information that other packages¹ have
dropped into /usr/share/texmf/texdoctk/, or into $TEXMFCONFIG/texdoctk
if you prefer that.
I can implement this as a Debian-specific patch, but generally I prefer
to deviate as little from upstream as possible. Therefore I'd be glad
if you would enhance it this way. I'm Ccing Thomas Esser so that he can
comment.
Many thanks for this improvement,
Frank
¹here, packages means more "a Debian package" than "a LaTeX package": it
has been adapted to put its file there, whereas an ordinary LaTeX
package would instruct the user to put it into TEXMFLOCAl/texdoctk or
their home tree.
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
Reply to: