[metapost] Difference between "mpost file.mp" and "mpost ./file.mp"

[Taco Hoekwater]

On 09/09/2010 08:47 PM, Dan Luecking wrote:
> At 07:07 AM 9/9/2010, you wrote:
>> Dear list
>>
>> When using the TEX module to typeset labels in a for loop, I
>> accidentally discovered that there is a difference between calling
>> mpost as "mpost -tex=latex file.mp" and "mpost -tex=latex
>> ./file.mp". In the former case, the labels come out as expected,
>> whereas in the latter, I only get 0's. Is this documented or expected?
>> I can see that the latter produces more output to the terminal as
>> well, although I can't figure out what it means.
>
> I get the same result (MetaPost 1.211 from TeXLive 2010 pretest).
>
> Perhaps it is a function of security settings. It would appear that
> mpost is not overwriting mptextmp.mpx. Thus only the first one that
> was created (containing code to produce 0) is used repeatedly.

It could be a file time issue. Which platform are you on?