[tex-live] mysterious mpost problem
h h extern
pragma at wxs.nl
Tue Jan 18 17:42:04 CET 2005
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This sounds very familiar. I think I remember Hans Hagen mentioning
> (privately?) this as well, but I can't seem to find any e-mail
> regarding this any more. I hope Hans remembers.
>
> Greetings, Taco
>
> Werner LEMBERG wrote:
>
>> [MetaPost 0.641 (Web2C 7.5.3)
>> kpathsea version 3.5.3]
>>
>> Please do the following, using the attached files:
>>
>> . Create mf2pt1.mem with `mpost --ini', using mf2pt1.mp.
>>
>> . Run `mpost --mem=mf2pt1 nospecial.mf'.
>>
>> Now compare `nospecial.0' with `nospecial.1': The files should be
>> identical, but they aren't on my GNU/Linux box. `nospecial.0' doesn't
>> contain any lines produced by the `special' command.
>>
>> On the other hand,
>>
>> mpost '&mf2pt1 \input nospecial.mf'
>>
>> gives the expected result.
>>
>> AFAIK, the results should be the same, so it looks like a bug in
>> mpost. Am I missing something?
it's already long ago that we ran into this, and discussed it; it has to do with
the fact that those specials are collected at the mem boundary and when that
boundary changes (due to either a change in the cnf file or due to another
progname environment) things gets lost [strings getting lost is one side effect,
but i think mp can even bomb]; in tex, some mem arrays can be adapted after
format generation, like the top/bot men things, probably because the boundary
mem areas are not used, contrary to metapost, and the problem is that in mp this
is not stored [normally the frozen mem allocations are stored and changes in the
cnf file have no consequence];
Hans
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Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
| www.pragma-pod.nl
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