[tex-live] dvips cannot find figures

[gnwiii at gmail.com]

On 12/28/05, Gerben Wierda <Gerben.Wierda at rna.nl> wrote:
>
> On 28 Dec 2005, at 12:31, Lars Madsen wrote:
>
> >> In the dvips info manual, the very short description for z only says
> >> that it is the same as the commandline switch -R, and there you
> >> have the
> >> explanation.  But you are right, it should also be in config.ps.
> >>
> >
> > And I think it sould have been in the TeXLive documentation, since
> > this is something that has changed from last year.
>
> I discussed this (with Karl I think) a while back and proposed a
> change. Currently, not only absolute paths are not permitted but also
> relative paths going up. That plays havoc with people having layouts
> like
>
> .../chapters
> .../images
>
> because the inclusions would be of the form ../images/foo.eps
>
> I suggested that default behaviour would accept relative but not
> absolute paths (as these can be used to read system information in a
> reliable way) and of course not the shell escapes.


If you block absolute paths then you have to block relative paths like
[../]^N for N
larger than the current depth,  since those are effectively the same as
absolute
paths.  Where security is concerned, simplicity is an advantage, so I don't
see a
reason to change from the current behaviour.


> I still have to make that change to dvips, but I will when we have
> moved away from p4.
>
> Unless of course everybody else thinks this is a bad idea.


I think it is a bad idea, but then I tend to think dvi-anything that
requires
maintenance is a bad idea.  I hardly ever use dvi anymore except to track
down other people's problems.  If we make dvips secure enough so it can't do
anything useful then people will stop bothering me.

My pdftex-1.30.5 handles images with absolute paths -- is there a mechanism
to block absolute and upwards relative paths in pdftex?

Time might be better spent considering how to deal with absolute paths in
pdftex and/or improving the documentation.

**
--
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
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