I have started making my changes to the Template-Latex code and have
decided not to make a separate release just to remove the "latex",
"pdflatex" and "dvips" parameters from the filter interface. I still
hope to have a release incorporating changes to run "bibtex" and
"makeindex" ready next week.
Thinking about use of TeX-related programs I realized that I also use
texinfo (albeit currently not with TT2). It would be relatively trivial
to add support for texinfo to the Template-Latex package (formating
texinfo documentation normally requires tex (or pdftex) to be run twice
then "texindex *.??" and finally tex again). I was thinking of adding a
module Template::Plugin::Texinfo, which would provide a "texinfo" filter
in a similar vein to the "latex" filter. The Perl code for the latex
filter is defined in Template::Latex; I am reworking that code to run a
sequence of programs (for latex it is (expressed in a regexp-ish way):
"latex{1,3} (bibtex latex)? (makeindex latex{1,2})?"; for texinfo it
would be "tex{1,2} (texindex tex)?" or "makinfo"). It could also run
other sequences of tex-related programs. The obvious question is "where
does one stop?". It looks like one could factor out a generic "external
filter chain" plugin ,that the various tex-related filters could use,
but that might also be useful in other contexts.
Any thoughts?
I also want to add a couple of configuration options (which could be
passed in to the "Template->new()" call). Currently I am thinking of
options to specify: the name of the temporary directory where processing
takes place, a flag to instruct the code not to delete the temporary
directory when the filter has finished, and settings for the TEXINPUTS
environment variable. The former two options are intended for debugging
- if there are Latex errors one can set the temp directory explicitly
and set it not to be cleared and then go in, look at the log files that
have been left and maybe run the latex commands manually to work out
what is going wrong.
Are there any naming conventions for configuration options?
Regards
Andrew
Andrew Ford wrote:
Having had more of a look through the Template-Latex code I plan to
make (at least) two releases in the next couple of weeks.
The first release will remove the 'latex', 'pdflatex' and 'dvips'
parameters from the filter interface. These parameters allow absolute
program pathnames to be specified in template code and to my mind
represent a security risk. Currently the code builds command lines
that are executed with system(), using either the paths configured
when the module was installed (defaulting to "/usr/bin/latex", etc) or
paths specified as arguments to the FILTER directive. The current
code does no sanity checking of the paths, so there is nothing to stop
a malicious template specifying something like "FILTER latex(latex =>
'rm -rf /home')". It should still be possible though to set up these
paths from perl code as configuration items when TT2 is invoked. I
hope to make this first release sometime next week.
Please let me know if you have any issues with this change.
The second release will follow a week or two later and will add
functionality to run "bibtex" and "makeindex" on the latex code if the
plugin detects that that is necessary, plus the plugin will re-run
"latex" (or "pdflatex") if it detects that there are unresolved
labels. I will provide an option to turn off this behaviour, so that
the plugin just runs "latex" a specified number of times: e.g. once,
twice (needed if there are forward references or a table of contents)
or three times (e.g. if there are forward references and a table of
contents) irrespective of whether that leaves unresolved labels. I
will refine this proposal and post it when I make the first release.
If you have any comments on this let me know.
I also have in mind to add options to explicitly specify the temporary
directory in which the latex commands are run and to suppress the
subsequent removal of this directory. This would primarily be for
testing and debugging and the options would not be exposed as FILTER
parameters at the template level.
Regards
Andrew
--
Andrew Ford, Director Pauntley Prints / Ford & Mason Ltd
[EMAIL PROTECTED] South Wing Compton House
pauntley-prints.co.uk Compton Green, Redmarley Tel: +44 1531 829900
ford-mason.co.uk Gloucester GL19 3JB Fax: +44 1531 829901
refcards.com cronolog.org Great Britain Mobile: +44 7785 258278
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