Re: metapost rebuilds mpost.mem everytime

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Hi Jörg,

sorry for taking so long to respond - I was busy moving to a new place
(and we're still living between boxes).

I've found the reason, but only after writing a longer reply.  I'll keep
that part for the archive, the solution is below at "SOLUTION"

Jörg Sommer <joerg@alea.gnuu.de> wrote:

> % mpost resolution.mp 
> This is MetaPost, Version 0.993 (Web2C 7.5.6)
> (resolution.mp (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/metapost/base/TEX.mp)makempx: Command failed: tex --parse-first-line --interaction=nonstopmode mpxerr.tex; see mpxerr.log
>
>>> resolution.mp
>>> resolution.mpx
> ! Unable to make mpx file.
> l.64 label(btex
>                 $R$ etex, p[0]-(0,3)*le) ;
> Transcript written on resolution.log.
> zsh: exit 1     mpost resolution.mp
> % cat mpxerr.log 
> % tex --parse-first-line --interaction=nonstopmode mpxerr.tex
> This is TeXk, Version 3.141592 (Web2C 7.5.6)
>  %&-line parsing enabled.
> ---! /var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdftex/latex.fmt was written by pdftex
> (Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)
> zsh: exit 1     tex --parse-first-line --interaction=nonstopmode mpxerr.tex
>
> I can delete and rebuild the file latex.fmt with fmtutil-sys --missing,
> but nothing changes.

Hm, yes.  Since TeXLive 2007, "tex" is old Knuthian TeX again, whereas
everything else uses pdftex.  

I'm a bit confused, though, that this causes real-life problems for
mpost, because I think if it occurs for everyone, it should have already
been detected.  

Hm, in web2c.info there's a section about makempx, and there it says:

`TEX'
     The command run to typeset the labels in TeX; the default is
     `etex', set in `texmf.cnf'.  If you use LaTeX, set this to
     `latex', and supply an appropriate `verbatimtex' header in the MP
     source (*note mpost invocation::).  Or put `%&latex' as the first
     line of your LaTeX source.

etex is a symlink to pdftex, so this should work.  Hm, why doesn't it?

SOLUTION

diff -ub src/Upstream-source/TeXLive/Master/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf 
[...]
-% Used by makempx to run TeX.  We use "etex" because MetaPost is
-% expecting DVI, and not "tex" because we want first line parsing.
-TEX = etex
-

This, and more, is missing in our texmf.cnf

Regards, Frank

-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)