[tex-live] TL2004: Technical problems and testing

[Petr Olsak]

On Fri, 7 May 2004, Olaf Weber wrote:

> Olaf Weber writes:
> > Hans Hagen writes:
>
> >> just curious: is \write16 the same as \message, or will \write16 act
> >> as any other write (which makes sense)
>
> > \write18 should be like other writes, not like \message.  Othewise it
> > becomes needlessly hard to use.
>
> Actually, it isn't like other writes, and it isn't like \message
> either.  TeX doesn't ever do ^^-processing for \write18, just like it
> doesn't do it for \special.
>
> Note that we don't even do xord/xchr processing for \write18 or
> \special, _and never have._

This is not actually true. It is possible to activate this conversion in
\specials (but it is not default behaviour of course). See section 4 in
encTeX documentation.

Petr Olsak