[tex-live] TeX Live 2013 : Why does "Kpsewhich" give output in wrong format on Windows

[Robin Fairbairns]

Philip Taylor <P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk> wrote:

> Endeavouring to find out for myself where XeTeX's predefined
> \lang@<whatever>s were stored, I typed (at the TeX Live
> command prompt) :
> 
> 	kpsewhich language.def
> 
> The answer given was :
> 
> 	c:/texlive/2013/texmf-var/tex/generic/config/language.def
> 
> When I then attempted to paste this into a CD command, I was told :
> 
> 	The directory name is invalid.
> 
> Why does Kpsewhich not respect platform conventions for the
> direction of slashes in file paths ?

because windows accepts the forward slash as a path separator, so
there's little point in doing the extra work?

> Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
> Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
> 
> C:\Windows\system32>kpsewhich language.def
> c:/texlive/2013/texmf-var/tex/generic/config/language.def
> 
> C:\Windows\system32>cd
> c:/texlive/2013/texmf-var/tex/generic/config/language.def
> 
> The directory name is invalid.

of course.  change directory to a file name, and you're unlikely to be
take there...

change to c:/texlive/2013/texmf-var/tex/generic/config/ and i expect
you'll get to the relevant directory.