[tex-live] Pathological search path for TeXMF.cnf

Philip Taylor P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk
Sat Mar 14 09:27:45 CET 2015



Norbert Preining wrote:

> Use kpsewhich -show-path texmf.cnf to see where the files are searched.

As I am currently trying to track down a serious performance issue with 
TeX Live 2014 on one of three machines, I tried Norbert's suggestion 
above, and the results are weird indeed :

> D:\>kpsewhich -show-path texmf.cnf

> D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32/share/texmf-local/web2c;D:
> /TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32/share/texmf-dist/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32/share
> /texmf/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32/texmf-local/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/w
> in32/texmf-dist/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32/texmf/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bi
> n;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/share/texmf-
> dist/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/share/texmf/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/texmf-loc
> al/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/texmf-dist/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/texmf/web2c;
> D:/TeX/Live/texmf-local/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014;D:/TeX/Live/2014/share/texmf-loca
> l/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/share/texmf-dist/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/share/texmf/web
> 2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/texmf-local/web2c;D:/TeX/Live/2014/texmf-dist/web2c;D:/TeX/L
> ive/2014/texmf/web2c

Here are my questions :

1) If one is mean to make local changes in \TeX\Live\2014\TeXMF.cnf, why
is that so far down the pecking order ?  TeXdoc KPATHSEA says (in part):

> Kpathsea reads all texmf.cnf files in the search path, not just the
> first one found; definitions in earlier files override those in later
> files.

so surely \TeX\Live\2014 should be the first element, not the $n$th ...

2) What are the references to (e.g.,)
"D:/TeX/Live/2014/bin/win32/share/texmf-local/web2c" ?  There /is/ no
"share" directory under /Bin/Win32.

3) Why does TEXMFCNF reference a hard-wired "texmf-local" (e.g.,)
"D:/TeX/Live/2014/texmf-local/web2c" ?  I have no such directory -- my
TEXMFLOCAL is \TeX\Live\TeXMF\Local, declared as such at installation time.

Philip Taylor


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