[tex-live] Bug in TexLive 2005 and 2007? Non-writable aux-file

[Karl Berry]

    even the experts have difficulties to know, which exact file name
    TeX uses, if he just presses RET.

I agree completely.  Hence my suggestion not to perform any search at
all if RET is entered.

    How can the file name prompt be aborted without specifying a valid file.

The major problem I remember over the years is that CTRL-C does not
interrupt, but continues the loop.  (I seem to remember making it do so
at one point, but maybe not, or maybe that behavior was lost in the
intervening years.)  Almost everyone working on the command line on any
platform is familiar with interrupting a program.  CTRL-D is
considerably less common.  (And didn't always work, either.)

    I clearly remember my despair as beginner when I was not be able

Me too.  Even more frustrating was when CTRL-C and/or CTRL-D caused an
uninterruptible non-interactive infinite loop, as was the case at one
point.  Had to resort to kill -9 ...

    A useful help string could be: "An empty file name aborts the job" :-)

Hmm.  Ok, if the help string is given in advance, I guess that answers
my objection.  So it would look something like this?

...
! I can't find file `foo'.
<*> foo

(Entering an empty file name will end the program.)
Please type another input file name:


I guess we'll see what others think.  We should probably run it by
tex-implementors, too.

Thanks,
Karl