[tex-k] kpsewhich, TEXINPUTS, -expand-var, and -progname

Thomas Esser te@informatik.uni-hannover.de
Tue, 3 Apr 2001 00:16:33 +0200 (MET DST)


> I'd like to change kpsewhich so that in --expand-var works as you
> expected, so that the last example would become

--expand-var should just do variable expansion and kpathsea has clear
rules how this works (e.g. env vars take precedencs over cnf vars). The
current implementation does just this and this is right.

I agree that the expansion that you describe is something that kpsewhich
should provide. The way I would do it is to make a new option to kpathsea.
This option should get the same type of argument as -show-path currently
has (a format type). This is the only unambigous way to get the right
default-expansion. If you waht to take a variable argument, how would
you handle "$TEXMFINI" or "$TEXFONTS"?

Thomas