[tex-live] asy & texmf v texmf-local

[Will Robertson]

Hi,

Since John has presumably missed the beginning of this short thread, I'll recap quickly:

In TeX Live, asymptote's style file is kept in 

   /usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf/tex/latex/asymptote/asymptote.sty

but when I compile asy from source, it puts its file (correctly, it seems to me) in

   /usr/local/texlive/2010/../texmf-local/tex/latex/asymptote/asymptote.sty

Unfortunately, the TL-installed asymptote.sty is found before the texmf-local one in the search path, and I was asking the best way to resolve this situation (since it would be nice if the source-installed copy was found first by default).


On 26/08/2010, at 6:10 PM, Victor Ivrii wrote:

> I have two asymptote.sty
> 
> /usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf/tex/latex/asymptote/asymptote.sty
> /usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf/tex/latex/asymptote/asymptote.sty
> 
> and the second one is installed by asymptote. Methink it should be
> /usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf-local/tex/latex/asymptote/asymptote.sty
> 
> I copying this message to John Bowman who can either clarify things or
> change installer behaviour


Norbert reckons that asymptote.sty belongs in 2010/texmf/ since it's tied to the engine, which seems sensible to me. While the source makefile could install asymptote.sty over the top of the TL version (i.e., replacing it), this would require the makefile to check if TL is being used, etc., which isn't fun.

I don't think there's any easy solution to this problem beyond saying "if you compile from source you need to remove the TL-installed asymptote.sty".

-- Will

P.S.  Perhaps I'm exaggerating the frustrations of checking for TL in the makefile. The configure script has

if test "x$kpsewhich" = "xtrue"; then
  latexdir=`kpsewhich -expand-var='$TEXMFLOCAL'/tex/latex`
else
  latexdir=$prefix/share/texmf/tex/latex
...

Is there a suitable test so you could write instead

if <TL2009 or TL2010 or greater but not teTeX nor MiKTeX>
  latexdir=`kpsewhich -expand-var='$TEXMFMAIN'/tex/latex`
else
  <the test above>

?