# Kpathsea: A library for path searching

Next: Introduction, Up: (dir)

## Kpathsea library

This manual documents how to install and use the Kpathsea library for filename lookup. It corresponds to version 3.5.3, released in May 2004.

Next: Installation, Previous: Top, Up: Top

## 1 Introduction

This manual corresponds to version 3.5.3 of the Kpathsea library, released in May 2004.

The library's fundamental purpose is to return a filename from a list of directories specified by the user, similar to what shells do when looking up program names to execute.

The following software, all of which we maintain, uses this library:

- Dviljk (see the dvilj man page)
- Dvipsk (see Introduction (Dvips: A DVI driver))
- GNU font utilities (see Introduction (GNU font utilities))
- Web2c (see Introduction (Web2c: A TeX implementation))
- Xdvik (see the xdvi man page)

Other software that we do not maintain also uses it.

We are still actively maintaining the library (and probably always will be, despite our hopes). If you have comments or suggestions, please send them to us (see Reporting bugs).

We distribute the library under the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL). In short, this means if you write a program using the library, you must (offer to) distribute the source to the library, along with any changes you have made, and allow anyone to modify the library source and distribute their modifications. It does not mean you have to distribute the source to your program, although we hope you will. See the files COPYING and COPYING.LIB for the text of the GNU licenses.

If you know enough about TeX to be reading this manual, then you (or your institution) should consider joining the TeX Users Group (if you're already a member, great!). TUG produces the periodical TUGboat, sponsors an annual meeting and publishes the proceedings, and arranges courses on TeX for all levels of users throughout the world. Anyway, here is the address:

         TeX Users Group
         P.O. Box 2311
         Portland OR 97208-2311
         USA
         phone: +1 503 223-9994
         fax:   +1 503 223-3960
         email: tug@tug.org

Up: Introduction

### 1.1 History

(This section is for those people who are curious about how the library came about.) (If you like to read historical accounts of software, we urge you to seek out the GNU Autoconf manual and the “Errors of TeX” paper by Don Knuth, published in Software—Practice and Experience 19(7), July 1989.)

[Karl writes.] My first ChangeLog entry for Web2c seems to be February 1990, but I may have done some work before then. In any case, Tim Morgan and I were jointly maintaining it for a time. (I should mention here that Tim had made Web2c into a real distribution long before I had ever used it or even heard of it, and Tom Rokicki did the original implementation. I was using `pxp` and `pc` on VAX 11/750's and the hot new Sun 2 machines.)

It must have been later in 1990 and 1991 that I started working on TeX for the Impatient. Dvips, Xdvi, Web2c, and the GNU fontutils (which I was also writing at the time) all used different environment variables, and, more importantly, had different bugs in their path searching. This became extremely painful, as I was stressing everything to the limit working on the book. I also desperately wanted to implement subdirectory searching, since I couldn't stand putting everything in one big directory, and also couldn't stand having to explicitly specify cm, pandora, ... in a path.

In the first incarnation, I just hacked separately on each program—that was the original subdirectory searching code in both Xdvi and Dvips, though I think Paul Vojta has completely rewritten Xdvi's support by now. That is, I tried to go with the flow in each program, rather than changing the program's calling sequences to conform to common routines.

Then, as bugs inevitably appeared, I found I was fixing the same thing three times (Web2c and fontutils were always sharing code, since I maintained those—there was no Dvipsk or Xdvik or Dviljk at this point). After a while, I finally started sharing source files. They weren't yet a library, though. I just kept things up to date with shell scripts. (I was developing on a 386 running ISC 2.2 at the time, and so didn't have symbolic links. An awful experience.)

The ChangeLogs for Xdvik and Dvipsk record initial releases of those distributions in May and June 1992. I think it was because I was tired of the different configuration strategies of each program, not so much because of the path searching. (Autoconf was being developed by David MacKenzie and others, and I was adapting it to TeX and friends.)

I started to make a separate library that other programs could link with on my birthday in April 1993, according to the ChangeLog. I don't remember exactly why I finally took the time to make it a separate library; a conversation with david zuhn that initiated it. Just seemed like it was time.

Dviljk got started in March 1994 after I bought a Laserjet 4. (Kpathsea work got suspended while Norm Walsh and I, with Gustaf Neumann's help, implemented a way for TeX to get at all those neat builtin LJ4 fonts ... such a treat to have something to typeset in besides Palatino!)

By spring of 1995, I had implemented just about all the path-searching features in Kpathsea that I plan to, driven beyond my initial goals by Thomas Esser and others. I then started to integrate Web2c with Kpathsea. After the release of a stable Web2c, I hope to be able to stop development, and turn most of my attention back to making fonts for GNU. (Always assuming Micros**t hasn't completely obliterated Unix by then, or that software patents haven't stopped software development by anybody smaller than a company with a million-dollar-a-year legal budget. Which is actually what I think is likely to happen, but that's another story...)

[Olaf writes.] At the end of 1997, UNIX is still alive and kicking, individuals still develop software, and Web2c development still continues. Karl had been looking for some time for someone to take up part of the burden, and I volunteered.

Next: Path searching, Previous: Introduction, Up: Top

## 2 Installation

(A copy of this chapter is in the distribution file kpathsea/INSTALL.)

The procedure for Kpathsea (and Web2c, etc.) configuration and installation follows. If you encounter trouble, see Common problems, a copy of which is in the file kpathsea/BUGS.

Next: Custom installation, Up: Installation

### 2.1 Simple installation

Installing TeX and friends for the first time can be a daunting experience. Thus, you may prefer to skip this whole thing and just get precompiled executables: see unixtex.ftp.

This section explains what to do if you wish to take the defaults for everything, and generally to install in the simplest possible way. Most steps here refer to corresponding subsection in the next section which explains how to override defaults and generally gives more details.

By default everything will be installed under /usr/local and the following discussion assumes this. However, if you already have TeX installed, its location is used to derive the directory under which everything is to be installed.

1. Be sure you have enough disk space: approximately 8 megabytes for the compressed archives, 15MB for sources, 50MB for compilation, 40MB for the (initial) installed system (including library files). See Disk space.
2. Retrieve these distribution archives:
   ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/texk.tar.gz
     These are the sources, which you will be compiling.
   ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/texklib.tar.gz
     This is a basic set of input files. You should unpack it in the directory /usr/local/share; doing so will create a texmf subdirectory there.

   These archives are mirrored on the CTAN hosts, in the systems/web2c directory.

   See Kpathsea application distributions.

3. When using the default search paths, there is no need to edit any distribution files. See Changing search paths.
4. At the top level of the distribution, run sh configure. (If you have the GNU Bash shell installed, run bash configure.) See Running configure.
5. make. See Running make. If you are using a BSD 4.4 system such as FreeBSD or NetBSD, you may have to use GNU make (often installed in /usr/local/bin), not the BSD make.
6. make install. See Installing files.
7. make distclean. See Cleaning up.
8. Set up a cron job to rebuild the filename database that makes searching faster. This line will rebuild it every midnight:

                 0 0 * * * cd /usr/local/share/texmf && /bindir/mktexlsr

   See Filename database generation, and Filename database.

9. If you're installing Dvips, you also need to set up configuration files for your printers and make any additional PostScript fonts available. See Installation (Dvips). If you have any color printers, see Color device configuration (Dvips).
10. The first time you run a DVI driver, a bunch of PK fonts will be built by Metafont via `mktexpk` (and added to the filename database). This will take some time. Don't be alarmed; they will created only this first time (unless something is wrong with your path definitions).

    By default, `mktexpk` will create these fonts in a hierarchy under /var/tmp/texfonts; it simply assumes that /var/tmp exists and is globally writable. If you need a different arrangement, see mktex configuration.

    See mktex scripts.

11. For some simple tests, try tex story \\bye and latex sample2e. Then run xdvi story or dvips sample2e on the resulting DVI files to preview/print the documents. See Installation testing.

Next: Security, Previous: Simple installation, Up: Installation

### 2.2 Custom installation

Most sites need to modify the default installation procedure in some way, perhaps merely changing the prefix from /usr/local, perhaps adding extra compiler or loader options to work around `configure` bugs. This section explains how to override default choices. For additional distribution-specific information:

- dviljk/INSTALL.
- See Installation (Dvips).
- See Installation (Web2c).
- xdvik/INSTALL.

These instructions are for Unix systems. Other operating-system specific distributions have their own instructions. The code base itself supports Amiga, DOS, OS/2, and VMS.

Following are the same steps as in the previous section (which describes the simplest installation), but with much more detail.

Next: Kpathsea application distributions, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.1 Disk space

Here is a table showing the disk space needed for each distribution (described in the next section). The `(totals)' line reflects the texk source distribution and texklib; the individual distributions don't enter into it. Sizes are in megabytes. All numbers are approximate.

Distribution | .tar.gz | Unpacked | Compiled | Installed
dviljk | .9 | 3.8 |
dvipsk | .9 | 3.2 |
xdvik | .7 | 2.5 |
web2c | 1.3 | 5.0 |
web | 1.9 | 6.5 | - | -
texk | 7.5 | 32.1 | 95.3 | 33.5
texklib | 6.3 | 15.0 | - | 15.0
(totals) | 14.6 | 47.1 | 95.3 | 48.5

Next: Changing search paths, Previous: Disk space, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.2 Kpathsea application distributions

The archive ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/texk.tar.gz contains all of the Kpathsea applications I maintain, and the library itself. For example, since NeXT does not generally support X11, you'd probably want to skip xdvik (or simply remove it after unpacking texk.tar.gz. If you are not interested in all of them, you can also retrieve them separately:

dviljk.tar.gz
  DVI to PCL, for LaserJet printers.
dvipsk.tar.gz
  DVI to PostScript, for previewers, printers, or PDF generation.
web2c.tar.gz
  The software needed to compile TeX and friends.
web.tar.gz
  The original WEB source files, also used in compilation.
xdvik.tar.gz
  DVI previewing under the X window system.

If you want to use the Babel LaTeX package for support of non-English typesetting, you may need to retrieve additional files. See the file install.txt in the Babel distribution.

Next: Running configure, Previous: Kpathsea application distributions, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.3 Changing search paths

If the search paths for your installation differ from the standard TeX directory structure (see Introduction (A Directory Structure for TeX files)), edit the file kpathsea/texmf.in as desired, before running `configure`. For example, if you have all your fonts or macros in one big directory.

You may also wish to edit the file mktex.cnf, either before or after installation, to control various aspects of `mktexpk` and friends. See mktex configuration.

You do not need to edit texmf.in to change the default top-level or other installation directories (only the paths). You can and should do that when you run `configure` (next step).

You also do not need to edit texmf.in if you are willing to rely on texmf.cnf at runtime to define the paths, and let the compile-time default paths be incorrect. Usually there is no harm in doing this.

The section below explains default generation in more detail.

Next: Default path generation, Up: Changing search paths

##### 2.2.3.1 Default path features

The purpose of having all the different files described in the section above is to avoid having the same information in more than one place. If you change the installation directories or top-level prefix at `configure`-time, those changes will propagate through the whole sequence. And if you change the default paths in texmf.in, those changes are propagated to the compile-time defaults.

The Make definitions are all repeated in several `Makefile`'s; but changing the top-level Makefile should suffice, as it passes down all the variable definitions, thus overriding the submakes. (The definitions are repeated so you can run Make in the subdirectories, if you should have occasion to.)

By default, the bitmap font paths end with /$MAKETEX_MODE, thus including the device name (usually a Metafont mode name such as ljfour). This distinguishes two different devices with the same resolution—a write/white from a write/black 300dpi printer, for example.

However, since most sites don't have this complication, Kpathsea (specifically, the `kpse_init_prog` function in kpathsea/proginit.c) has a special case: if the mode has not been explicitly set by the user (or in a configuration file), it sets `MAKETEX_MODE` to `/`. This makes the default PK path, for example, expand into `.../pk//`, so fonts will be found even if there is no subdirectory for the mode (if you arranged things that way because your site has only one printer, for example) or if the program is mode-independent (e.g., `pktype`).

To make the paths independent of the mode, simply edit texmf.in before installation, or the installed texmf.cnf, and remove the $MAKETEX_MODE.

See mktex script arguments, for how this interacts with `mktexpk`.

See TeX directory structure, for a description of the default arrangement of the input files that comprise the TeX system. The file kpathsea/HIER is a copy of that section.

Previous: Default path features, Up: Changing search paths

##### 2.2.3.2 Default path generation

This section describes how the default paths are constructed.

You may wish to ignore the whole mess and simply edit texmf.cnf after it is installed, perhaps even copying it into place beforehand so you can complete the installation, if it seems necessary.

To summarize the chain of events that go into defining the default paths:

1. configure creates a Makefile from each Makefile.in.
2. When Make runs in the kpathsea directory, it creates a file texmf.sed that substitutes the Make value of `$(var)` for a string `@var@`. The variables in question are the one that define the installation directories.
3. texmf.sed (together with a little extra magic—see kpathsea/Makefile) is applied to texmf.in to generate texmf.cnf. This is the file that will eventually be installed and used.
4. The definitions in texmf.cnf are recast as C `#define`'s in paths.h. These values will be the compile-time defaults; they are not used at runtime unless no texmf.cnf file can be found.

   (That's a lie: the compile-time defaults are what any extra `:`'s in texmf.cnf expand into; but the paths as distributed have no extra `:`'s, and there's no particular reason for them to.)

Next: Running make, Previous: Changing search paths, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.4 Running `configure`

Run `sh configure` options (in the top-level directory, the one containing kpathsea/), possibly using a shell other than `sh` (see configure shells).

`configure` adapts the source distribution to the present system via `#define`'s in */c-auto.h, which are created from the corresponding c-auto.in. It also creates a Makefile from the corresponding Makefile.in, doing @var@ and ac_include substitutions).

`configure` is the best place to control the configuration, compilation, and installed location of the software, either via command-line options, or by setting environment variables before invoking it. For example, you can disable `mktexpk` by default with the option --disable-mktexpk. See configure options.

Next: configure options, Up: Running configure

##### 2.2.4.1 `configure` shells

Considerable effort has gone into trying to ensure that the `configure` scripts can be run by most Bourne shell variants. If `sh` runs into trouble, your best bet is to use Bash, the GNU Bourne-again shell (see Top (Bash Reference Manual)).

Bourne shell variants for which problems have been reported in the past are:

`ksh`
  Old versions of the Korn shell may fail to handle the scripts. The Korn shell may be installed as /bin/sh on AIX, in which case /bin/bsh may serve instead.
`ash`
  Old versions of ash are unable to handle the scripts. Ash is sometimes installed as /bin/sh on NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Linux systems. /bin/bash should be available for those systems, but might not be part of a default installation.
Ultrix`/bin/sh`
  /bin/sh under Ultrix is a DEC-grown shell that is notably deficient in many ways. /bin/sh5 may be necessary.

Next: configure environment, Previous: configure shells, Up: Running configure

##### 2.2.4.2 `configure` options

For a complete list of all `configure` options, run configure --help or see Running `configure` scripts (Autoconf), (a copy is in the file kpathsea/README.CONFIGURE). The generic options are listed first in the --help output, and the package-specific options come last. The environment variables `configure` pays attention to are listed below.

Options particularly likely to be useful are --prefix, --datadir, and the like; see configure scenarios.

This section gives pointers to descriptions of the --with and --enable options to `configure` that Kpathsea-using programs accept.

--without-mktexmf-default
--without-mktexpk-default
--without-mktextfm-default
--with-mktextex-default
  Enable or disable the dynamic generation programs. See mktex configuration.
--enable-shared
  Build Kpathsea as a shared library, and link against it. Also build the usual static library. See Shared library.
--disable-static
  Build only the shared library. Implies --enable-shared.
--enable-maintainer-mode
  Enables make targets that are useful for the maintainer and likely to be a pain for anyone else; the makefiles created when this option is enabled may not work at all for you. You have been warned.

Next: configure scenarios, Previous: configure options, Up: Running configure

##### 2.2.4.3 `configure` environment

`configure` uses the value of the following environment variables in determining your system's characteristics, and substitutes for them in `Makefile`'s:

CC
  The compiler to use: default is `gcc` if it's installed, otherwise `cc`.
CFLAGS
  Options to give the compiler: default is -g -O2 for `gcc`, -g otherwise. `CFLAGS` comes after any other options. You may need to include `-w` here if your compilations commonly have useless warnings (e.g., `NULL redefined`), or `configure` may fail to detect the presence of header files (it takes the messages on standard error to mean the header file doesn't exist).
CPPFLAGS
  Options to pass to the compiler preprocessor; this matters most for configuration, not the actual source compilation. The `configure` script often does only preprocessing (e.g., to check for the existence of `#include` files), and `CFLAGS` is not used for this. You may need to set this to something like -I/usr/local/include/wwwhatever if you have the libwww library installed for hyper-xdvik (see xdvik/INSTALL).
DEFS
  Additional preprocessor options, but not used by `configure`. Provided for enabling or disabling program features, as documented in the various program-specific installation instructions. `DEFS` comes before any compiler options included by the distribution Makefiles or by `configure`.
LDFLAGS
  Additional options to give to the loader. `LDFLAGS` comes before any other linker options.
LIBS
  Additional libraries to link with.

Next: Shared library, Previous: configure environment, Up: Running configure

##### 2.2.4.4 `configure` scenarios

Here are some common installation scenarios:

- Including X support in Metafont. This is disabled by default, since many sites have no use for it, and it's a leading cause of configuration problems.

                configure --with-x

- Putting the binaries, TeX files, GNU info files, etc. into a single TeX hierarchy, say /here/texmf, requires overriding defaults in `configure`:

                configure --prefix=/here/texmf --datadir=/here

- You can compile on multiple architectures simultaneously either by building symbolic link trees with the `lndir` script from the X11 distribution, or with the --srcdir option:

                configure --srcdir=srcdir

- If you are installing binaries for multiple architectures into a single hierarchy, you will probably want to override the default bin and lib directories, something like this:

                configure --prefix=texmf --datadir=texmf \
                  --bindir=texmf/arch/bin --libdir=texmf/arch/lib
                make texmf=texmf

  (Unless you make provisions for architecture-specific files in other ways, e.g., with Depot or an automounter.)

- To compile with optimization (to compile without debugging, remove the -g):

                env CFLAGS="-g -O" sh configure ...

  For a potential problem if you optimize, see TeX or Metafont failing.

Previous: configure scenarios, Up: Running configure

##### 2.2.4.5 Shared library

You can compile Kpathsea as a shared library on a few systems, by specifying the option --enable-shared when you run configure.

The main advantage in doing this is that the executables can then share the code, thus decreasing memory and disk space requirements.

On some systems, you can record the location of shared libraries in a binary, usually by giving certain options to the linker. Then individual users do not need to set their system's environment variable (e.g., `LD_LIBRARY_PATH`) to find shared libraries. If you want to do this, you will need to add the necessary options to `LDFLAGS` yourself; for example, on Solaris, include something like -R${prefix}/lib, on IRIX or Linux, use -rpath${prefix}/lib. (Unfortunately, making this happen by default is very difficult, because of interactions with an existing installed shared library.)

Currently, shared library support is implemented only on Linux, SunOS 4 (Solaris 1), SunOS 5 (Solaris 2), IRIX 5, and IRIX 6. If you're interested and willing in adding support for other systems, please see the configure mode in the klibtool script, especially the host-specific case statement around line 250.

Next: Installing files, Previous: Running configure, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.5 Running `make`

`make` (still in the top-level directory). This also creates the texmf.cnf and paths.h files that define the default search paths, and (by default) the plain and latex TeX formats.

You can override directory names and other values at `make`-time. make/paths.make lists the variables most commonly reset. For example, make default_texsizes=600 changes the list of fallback resolutions.

You can also override each of `configure`'s environment variables (see configure environment). The Make variables have the same names.

Finally, you can supply additional options via the following variables. (`configure` does not use these.)

XCPPFLAGS
XDEFS
  Preprocessor options.
XCFLAGS
  Compiler options.
XLDFLAGS
  Loader options (included at beginning of link commands).
XLOADLIBES
  More loader options (included at end of link commands).
XMAKEARGS
  Additional Make arguments passed to all sub-`make`'s. You may need to include assignments to the other variables here via `XMAKEARGS`; for example: make XMAKEARGS="CFLAGS=-O XDEFS=-DA4".

It's generally a bad idea to use a different compiler (CC) or libraries (`LIBS`) for compilation than you did for configuration, since the values `configure` determined may then be incorrect.

Adding compiler options to change the “universe” you are using (typically BSD vs. system V) is generally a cause of trouble. It's best to use the native environment, whatever that is; `configure` and the software usually adapt best to that. In particular, under Solaris 2.x, you should not use the BSD-compatibility library (libucb) or include files (ucbinclude).

If you want to use the Babel LaTeX package for support of non-English typesetting, you need to modify some files before making the LaTeX format. See the file install.txt in the Babel distribution.

Next: Cleaning up, Previous: Running make, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.6 Installing files

The basic command is the usual `make install`. For security issues, see Security.

The first time you install any manual in the GNU Info system, you should add a line (you choose where) to the file dir in your $(infodir) directory. Sample text for this is given near the top of the Texinfo source files (kpathsea/kpathsea.texi, dvipsk/dvips.texi, and web2c/doc/web2c.texi). If you have a recent version of the GNU Texinfo distribution installed (ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/texinfo-3.9.tar.gz or later), this should happen automatically.

On the offchance that this is your first Info installation, the dir file I use is included in the distribution as etc/dir-example.

You may wish to use one of the following targets, especially if you are installing on multiple architectures:

- `make install-exec` to install in architecture-dependent directories, i.e., ones that depend on the `$(exec_prefix)` Make variable. This includes links to binaries, libraries, etc., not just “executables”.
- `make install-data` to install in architecture-independent directories, such as documentation, configuration files, pool files, etc.

If you use the Andrew File System, the normal path (e.g., prefix/bin) only gets you to a read-only copy of the files, and you must specify a different path for installation. The best way to do this is by setting the prefix variable on the `make` command line. The sequence becomes something like this:

         configure --prefix=/whatever
         make
         make install prefix=/afs/.system.name/system/1.3/@sys/whatever

With AFS, you will definitely want to use relative filenames in ls-R (see Filename database), not absolute filenames. This is done by default, but check anyway.

Next: Filename database generation, Previous: Installing files, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.7 Cleaning up

The basic command is `make distclean`. This removes all files created by the build.

Alternatively,

- `make mostlyclean` if you intend to compile on another architecture. For Web2C, since the generated C files are portable, they are not removed. If the `lex` vs. `flex` situation is going to be different on the next machine, `rm web2c/lex.yy.c`.
- `make clean` to remove files created by compiling, but leave configuration files and Makefiles.
- `make maintainer-clean` to remove everything that the Makefiles can rebuild. This is more than distclean removes, and you should only use it if you are thoroughly conversant with (and have the necessary versions of) Autoconf.
- `make extraclean` to remove other junk, e.g., core files, log files, patch rejects. This is independent of the other clean targets.

Next: mktex scripts, Previous: Cleaning up, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.8 Filename database generation

You will probably want to set up a `cron` entry on the appropriate machine(s) to rebuild the filename database nightly or so, as in:

         0 0 * * * cd texmf && /bindir/mktexlsr

See Filename database.

Although the `mktex...` scripts make every effort to add newly-created files on the fly, it can't hurt to make sure you get a fresh version every so often.

Next: Installation testing, Previous: Filename database generation, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.9 mktex scripts

If Kpathsea cannot otherwise find a file, for some file types it is configured by default to invoke an external program to create it dynamically (see mktex configuration). This is most useful for fonts (bitmaps, TFM's, and arbitrarily-sizable Metafont sources such as the Sauter and EC fonts), since any given document can use fonts never before referenced. Trying to build all fonts in advance is therefore impractical, if not impossible.

The script is passed the name of the file to create and possibly other arguments, as explained below. It must echo the full pathname of the file it created (and nothing else) to standard output; it can write diagnostics to standard error.

Next: mktex script names, Up: mktex scripts

##### 2.2.9.1 mktex configuration

The following file types can run an external program to create missing files: pk, tfm, mf, tex; the scripts are named mktexpk, mktextfm, mktexmf, and mktextex.

In the absence of `configure` options specifying otherwise, everything but mktextex will be enabled by default. The `configure` options to change the defaults are:

         --without-mktexmf-default
         --without-mktexpk-default
         --without-mktextfm-default
         --with-mktextex-default

The `configure` setting is overridden if the environment variable or configuration file value named for the script is set; e.g., MKTEXPK (see mktex script arguments).

As distributed, all the scripts source a file texmf/web2c/mktex.cnf if it exists, so you can override various defaults. See mktex.opt, for instance, which defines the default mode, resolution, some special directory names, etc. If you prefer not to change the distributed scripts, you can simply create mktex.cnf with the appropriate definitions (you do not need to create it if you have nothing to put in it). mktex.cnf has no special syntax; it's an arbitrary Bourne shell script. The distribution contains a sample mktex.cnf for you to copy and modify as you please (it is not installed anywhere).

In addition, you can configure a number of features with the `MT_FEATURES` variable, which you can define:

- in mktex.opt, as just mentioned;
- by editing the file mktex.opt, either before make install (in the source hierarchy) or after (in the installed hierarchy);
- or in the environment.

If none of the options below are enabled, `mktexpk`, `mktextfm`, and `mktexmf` follow the following procedure to decide where fonts should be installed. Find the tree where the font's sources are, and test the permissions of the fonts directory of that tree to determine whether it is writable. If it is, put the files in the tree in appropriate locations. If it isn't writable, see whether the tree is a system tree (named in `SYSTEXMF`). If so, the `VARTEXFONTS` tree is used. In all other cases the working directory is used.

The appendonlydir option is enabled by default.

appendonlydir
  Tell `mktexdir` to create directories append-only, i.e., set their sticky bit (see Mode Structure (GNU Core Utilities)). This feature is silently ignored on non-Unix platforms (e.g. Windows/NT and MS-DOS) which don't support similar functionality. This feature is enabled by default.
dosnames
  Use 8.3 names; e.g., dpi600/cmr10.pk instead of cmr10.600pk. Note that this feature only affects filenames that would otherwise clash with other TeX-related filenames; mktex scripts do nothing about filenames which exceed the 8+3 MS-DOS limits but remain unique when truncated (by the OS) to these limits, and nether do the scripts care about possible clashes with files which aren't related with TeX. For example, cmr10.600pk would clash with cmr10.600gf and is therefore changed when dosnames is in effect, but mf.pool and mp.base don't clash with any TeX-related files and are therefore unchanged.

  This feature is turned on by default on MS-DOS. If you do not wish dosnames to be set on an MS-DOS platform, you need to set the `MT_FEATURES` environment variable to a value that doesn't include dosnames. You can also change the default setting by editing mktex.opt, but only if you use the mktex shell scripts; the emulation programs don't consult mktex.opt.

fontmaps
  Instead of deriving the location of a font in the destination tree from the location of the sources, the aliases and directory names from the Fontname distribution are used. (see Introduction (Fontname)).
nomfdrivers
  Let mktexpk and mktextfm create metafont driver files in a temporary directory. These will be used for just one metafont run and not installed permanently.
nomode
  Omit the directory level for the mode name; this is fine as long as you generate fonts for only one mode.
stripsupplier
  Omit the font supplier name directory level.
striptypeface
  Omit the font typeface name directory level.
strip
  Omit the font supplier and typeface name directory levels. This feature is deprecated in favour of stripsupplier and striptypeface.
varfonts
  When this option is enabled, fonts that would otherwise be written in system texmf tree go to the `VARTEXFONTS` tree instead. The default value in kpathsea/Makefile.in is /var/tmp/texfonts. The Linux File System Standard recommends /var/tex/fonts.

  The varfonts setting in `MT_FEATURES` is overridden by the `USE_VARTEXFONTS` environment variable: if set to 1, the feature is enabled, and if set to 0, the feature is disabled.

Next: mktex script arguments, Previous: mktex configuration, Up: mktex scripts

##### 2.2.9.2 mktex script names

The following table shows the default name of the script for each possible file types. (The source is the variable `kpse_make_specs` in kpathsea/tex-make.c.)

mktexpk
  Glyph fonts.
mktextex
  TeX input files.
mktexmf
  Metafont input files.
mktextfm
  TFM files.

These names are overridden by an environment variable specific to the program—for example, `DVIPSMAKEPK` for Dvipsk.

If a `mktex...` script fails, the invocation is appended to a file missfont.log (by default) in the current directory. You can then execute the log file to create the missing files after fixing the problem.

If the current directory is not writable and the environment variable or configuration file value `TEXMFOUTPUT` is set, its value is used. Otherwise, nothing is written. The name missfont.log is overridden by the `MISSFONT_LOG` environment variable or configuration file value.

Previous: mktex script names, Up: mktex scripts

##### 2.2.9.3 mktex script arguments

The first argument to a mktex script is always the name of the file to be created.

In the default mktexpk implementation, additional arguments may also be passed:

--dpi num
  Sets the resolution of the generated font to num.
--mfmode name
  Sets the Metafont mode to name.
--bdpi num
  Sets the the “base dpi” for the font. This must match the mode being used.
--mag string
  A “magstep” string suitable for the Metafont `mag` variable. This must match the combination of bdpi and dpi being used.
--destdir string
  A directory name. If the directory is absolute, it is used as-is. Otherwise, it is appended to the root destination directory set in the script.

Previous: mktex scripts, Up: Custom installation

#### 2.2.10 Installation testing

Besides the tests listed in Simple installation, you can try running make check. This includes the torture tests (trip, trap, and mptrap) that come with Web2c (see Triptrap (Web2c)).

Next: TeX directory structure, Previous: Custom installation, Up: Installation

### 2.3 Security

None of the programs in the TeX system require any special system privileges, so there's no first-level security concern of people gaining illegitimate root access.

A TeX document, however, can write to arbitrary files, e.g., ~/.rhosts, and thus an unwitting user who runs TeX on a random document is vulnerable to a trojan horse attack. This loophole is closed by default, but you can be permissive if you so desire in texmf.cnf. See tex invocation (Web2c). MetaPost has the same issue.

Dvips, Xdvi, and TeX can also execute shell commands under some circumstances. To disable this, see the -R option in Option details (Dvips), the xdvi man page, and tex invocation (Web2c), respectively.

Another security issue arises because it's very useful—almost necessary—to make arbitrary fonts on user demand with `mktexpk` and friends. Where do these files get installed? By default, the `mktexpk` distributed with Kpathsea assumes a world-writable /var/tmp directory; this is a simple and convenient approach, but it may not suit your situation because it means that a local cache of fonts is created on every machine.

To avoid this duplication, many people consider a shared, globally writable font tree desirable, in spite of the potential security problems. To do this you should change the value of `VARTEXFONTS` in texmf.cnf to refer to some globally known directory. See mktex configuration.

The first restriction you can apply is to make newly-created directories under texmf be append-only with an option in mktex.cnf. See mktex configuration.

Another approach is to establish a group (or user) for TeX files, make the texmf tree writable only to that group (or user), and make `mktexpk` et al. setgid to that group (or setuid to that user). Then users must invoke the scripts to install things. (If you're worried about the inevitable security holes in scripts, then you could write a C wrapper to exec the script.)

The mktex... scripts install files with the same read and write permissions as the directory they are installed in. The executable, sgid, suid, and sticky bits are always cleared.

Any directories created by the mktex... scripts have the same permissions as their parent directory, unless the `appendonlydir` feature is used, in which case the sticky bit is always set.

Next: unixtex.ftp, Previous: Security, Up: Installation

### 2.4 TeX directory structure

This section describes the default installation hierarchy of the distribution. It conforms to both the GNU coding standards and the TeX directory structure (TDS) standard. For rationale and further explanation, please see those documents. The GNU standard is available as ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/standards/standards.texi and mirrors. The TDS document is available from CTAN:/tex-archive/tds (see unixtex.ftp).

You can change the default paths in many ways (see Changing search paths). One common desire is to put everything (binaries and all) under a single top-level directory such as /usr/local/texmf or /opt/texmf—in the terms used below, make prefix and texmf the same. For specific instructions on doing that, see configure scenarios.

Here is a skeleton of the default directory structure, extracted from the TDS document:

         prefix/      installation root (/usr/local by default)
          bin/         executables
          man/         man pages
          include/     C header files
          info/        GNU info files
          lib/         libraries (libkpathsea.*)
          share/       architecture-independent files
           texmf/      TDS root
            bibtex/     BibTeX input files
             bib/        BibTeX databases
              base/       base distribution (e.g., xampl.bib)
              misc/       single-file databases
              pkg/       name of a package
             bst/        BibTeX style files
              base/       base distribution (e.g., plain.bst, acm.bst)
              misc/       single-file styles
              pkg/       name of a package
            doc/         additional documentation
            dvips/       .pro, .ps, psfonts.map
            fonts/       font-related files
             type/         file type (e.g., tfm, pk)
              mode/          type of output device (types pk and gf only)
               supplier/       name of a font supplier (e.g., public)
                typeface/        name of a typeface (e.g., cm)
                 dpinnn/           font resolution (types pk and gf only)
            metafont/    Metafont (non-font) input files
             base/        base distribution (e.g., plain.mf)
             misc/        single-file packages (e.g., modes.mf)
             pkg/           name of a package (e.g., mfpic)
            metapost/    MetaPost input files
             base/        base distribution (e.g., plain.mp)
             misc/        single-file packages
             pkg/           name of a package
             support/     support files for MetaPost-related utilities (e.g., trfonts.map)
            mft/         MFT inputs (e.g., plain.mft)
            tex/         TeX input files
             format/         name of a format (e.g., plain)
              base/        base distribution for format (e.g., plain.tex)
              misc/        single-file packages (e.g., webmac.tex)
              local/       local additions to or local configuration files for format
              pkg/           name of a package (e.g., graphics, mfnfss)
             generic/     format-independent packages
              hyphen/      hyphenation patterns (e.g., hyphen.tex)
              images/      image input files (e.g., Encapsulated PostScript)
              misc/        single-file format-independent packages (e.g., null.tex).
              pkg/           name of a package (e.g., babel)
            web2c/        implementation-dependent files (.pool, .fmt, texmf.cnf, etc.)

Some concrete examples for most file types:

         /usr/local/bin/tex
         /usr/local/man/man1/xdvi.1
         /usr/local/info/kpathsea.info
         /usr/local/lib/libkpathsea.a
         /usr/local/share/texmf/bibtex/bst/base/plain.bst
         /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/pk/ljfour/public/cm/cmr10.600pk
         /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/source/public/pandora/pnr10.mf
         /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/tfm/public/cm/cmr10.tfm
         /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/type1/adobe/utopia/putr.pfa
         /usr/local/share/texmf/metafont/base/plain.mf
         /usr/local/share/texmf/metapost/base/plain.mp
         /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/plain/base/plain.tex
         /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/generic/hyphen/hyphen.tex
         /usr/local/share/texmf/web2c/tex.pool
         /usr/local/share/texmf/web2c/tex.fmt
         /usr/local/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf

Next: Reporting bugs, Previous: TeX directory structure, Up: Installation

### 2.5 unixtex.ftp: Obtaining TeX

This is ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/unixtex.ftp, last updated 26 December 2003. Also available as http://www.tug.org/unixtex.ftp. The IP address is currently `[130.225.2.178]`. It is also in Kpathsea source distributions as etc/unixtex.ftp (although the network version is usually newer). Mail tex-k@mail.tug.org with comments or questions.

Following are general instructions for Unix or other sites who wish to acquire the Web2c distribution, (plain) TeX, LaTeX (2e), BibTeX, Metafont, MetaPost, DVI processors for the X window system, PostScript, the PCL language in the HP LaserJet, and related programs. They are oriented towards building from the original sources, though some information on alternative packages is included in the last section. See also http://www.tug.org/web2c/, the Web2c and Kpathsea home page.

Please note that the Web2c distribution is a bare-bones distribution in source form, and building a complete installation from it is a non-trivial matter. For most uses, it is a better idea to install a distribution with pre-packaged binaries for your platform. The principal example of such a distribution is TeX Live (http://www.tug.org/texlive/), which is based on the Web2c sources.

Please consider joining the TeX Users Group (TUG) or another user group of your choice to help support the maintenance and development of the programs you retrieve. See http://www.tug.org/join.html for information and the membership registration form, and http://www.tug.org/usergroups.html for a listing of all user groups.

For actual installation instructions after obtaining the necessary sources, see Installation. A copy is in the distribution file kpathsea/INSTALL.

Next: CD-ROM distribution, Up: unixtex.ftp

#### 2.5.1 Electronic distribution

In many places we refer to CTAN:. This is both a host name and a directory name. Here are the primary locations:

         ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/    (Vermont, USA)
         ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/    (Germany)
         ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/   (England)

CTAN has many mirrors worldwide; see the top-level file README.mirrors from one of the sites above or see http://www.tug.org/CTAN.sites.

You can also access CTAN via the World Wide Web, electronic mail, or NFS. The same README.mirrors file explains how.

You will need to retrieve some or all of the following archives, depending on your needs (don't forget to set binary mode for file transfers):

CTAN:/systems/web2c/web.tar.gz
  The original WEB source files, written primarily by Don Knuth. Required unless you already have this web version. (The WEB sources change irregularly with respect to Web2c itself.) Unpacks into web2c-version.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/web2c.tar.gz
  The Web2c system. Required. Also unpacks into web2c-version.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/web2c-etex.tar.gz
  Additions to the Web2c system for building e-TeX. Optional. Unpacks into web2c-version.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/etexlib.tar.gz
  Additions to the texmf tree needed to build e-TeX. Optional. Unpacks into texmf/.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/etexdoc.tar.gz
  Documentation for e-TeX as an addition to the texmf tree. Optional. Unpacks into texmf/.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/web2c-omega.tar.gz
  Additions to the Web2c system for building Omega. Optional. Unpacks into web2c-version.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/omegalib.tar.gz
  Additions to the texmf tree needed to build Omega. Optional. Unpacks into texmf/.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/omegadoc.tar.gz
  Documentation for Omega as an addition to the texmf tree. Optional. Unpacks into texmf/.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/web2c-pdftex.tar.gz
  Additions to the Web2c system for building pdfTeX. Optional. Unpacks into web2c-version.
CTAN:/systems/web2c/pdftexlib.tar.gz
  Additions to the texmf tree needed to build pdfTeX. Optional. Unpacks into texmf/.
CTAN:/dviware/xdvik/xdvik.tar.gz
  X window system DVI previewer. Unpacks into xdvik-version. Optional.

Additional drivers, macro files, and other support are needed to build a working system. These are available in teTeX.

All that said, the originating host for the software above is ftp.tug.org. You can retrieve these distributions (but not much else) from the tex/ directory on that host.

Next: Other TeX packages, Previous: Electronic distribution, Up: unixtex.ftp

#### 2.5.2 CD-ROM distribution

Numerous organizations distribute various TeX CD-ROM's (and DVD's):

- Virtually all the TeX user groups collaborate to produce the TeX Live distribution once a year; see http://www.tug.org/texlive/ for more information.
- The Free Software Foundation's Source Code CD-ROM contains the minimal TeX source distribution described in the previous section (i.e., enough to print GNU documentation); email gnu@gnu.org.
- Most Linux distributions include some TeX package based on Web2c; see the Linux documentation file Distribution-HOWTO for a comparison of Linux distributions, available (for example) via http://www.linux.org.

If you know of additional TeX distributions to add to this list, please inform tex-k@mail.tug.org.

Previous: CD-ROM distribution, Up: unixtex.ftp

#### 2.5.3 Other TeX packages

Many other TeX implementations are available in CTAN:/systems, including ready-to-run distributions for Unix, Amiga, Acorn, VMS, Macintosh, DOS, and Windows (in various forms). Although Web2c has support in the source code for many operating systems, and in fact some of the other distributions are based on it, it's unlikely to work as distributed on anything but Unix. (Please contribute improvements!)

The principal user-oriented Unix distribution based on Web2c is the teTeX distribution. It includes complete sources, and runs on all modern Unix variants, including Linux. It contains many TeX-related programs besides those in the core Web2c.

The host `labrea.stanford.edu` is the original source for the files for which Donald Knuth is directly responsible: tex.web, plain.tex, etc. However, unless you want to build your TeX library tree ab initio, it is more reliable and less work to retrieve these files as part of the above packages. In any case, `labrea` is not the canonical source for anything except what was created by Stanford TeX project, so do not rely on all the files available at that ftp site being up-to-date.

Previous: unixtex.ftp, Up: Installation

### 2.6 Reporting bugs

(A copy of this chapter is in the file kpathsea/BUGS.)

If you have problems or suggestions, please report them to tex-k@mail.tug.org using the bug checklist below.

Please report bugs in the documentation; not only factual errors or inconsistent behavior, but unclear or incomplete explanations, typos, wrong fonts, ...

Next: Mailing lists, Up: Reporting bugs

#### 2.6.1 Bug checklist

Before reporting a bug, please check below to be sure it isn't already known (see Common problems).

Bug reports should be sent via electronic mail to tex-k@mail.tug.org, or by postal mail to 135 Center Hill Road / Plymouth, MA 02360 / USA.

The general principle is that a good bug report includes all the information necessary for reproduction. Therefore, to enable investigation, your report should include the following:

- The version number(s) of the program(s) involved, and of Kpathsea itself. You can get the former by giving a sole option --version to the program, and the latter by running kpsewhich --version. The NEWS and ChangeLog files also contain the version number.
- The hardware, operating system (including version number), compiler, and `make` program you are using (the output of `uname -a` is a start on the first two, though often incomplete). If the bug involves the X window system, include X version and supplier information as well (examples: X11R6 from MIT; X11R4 from HP; OpenWindows 3.3 bundled with SunOS 4.1.4).
- Any options you gave to `configure`. This is recorded in the config.status files.

  If you are reporting a bug in configure itself, it's probably system-dependent, and it will be unlikely the maintainers can do anything useful if you merely report that thus-and-such is broken. Therefore, you need to do some additional work: for some bugs, you can look in the file config.log where the test that failed should appear, along with the compiler invocation and source program in question. You can then compile it yourself by hand, and discover why the test failed. Other configure bugs do not involve the compiler; in that case, the only recourse is to inspect the `configure` shell script itself, or the Autoconf macros that generated `configure`.

- The log of all debugging output, if the bug is in path searching. You can get this by setting the environment variable `KPATHSEA_DEBUG` to -1 before running the program. Please look at the log yourself to make sure the behavior is really a bug before reporting it; perhaps “old” environment variable settings are causing files not to be found, for example.
- The contents of any input files necessary to reproduce the bug. For bugs in DVI-reading programs, for example, this generally means a DVI file (and any EPS or other files it uses)—TeX source files are helpful, but the DVI file is necessary, because that's the actual program input.

  GNU `shar`, available from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu is a convenient way of packaging multiple (possibly binary) files for electronic mail. If you feel your input files are too big to send by email, you can ftp them to ftp://ftp.tug.org/incoming (that directory is writable, but not readable).

- If you are sending a patch (do so if you can!), please do so in the form of a context diff (diff -c) against the original distribution source. Any other form of diff is either not as complete or harder for me to understand. Please also include a ChangeLog entry.
- If the bug involved is an actual crash (i.e., core dump), it is easy and useful to include a stack trace from a debugger (I recommend the GNU debugger GDB, available from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu). If the cause is apparent (a `NULL` value being dereferenced, for example), please send the details along. If the program involved is TeX or Metafont, and the crash is happening at apparently-sound code, however, the bug may well be in the compiler, rather than in the program or the library (see TeX or Metafont failing).
- Any additional information that will be helpful in reproducing, diagnosing, or fixing the bug.

Next: Debugging, Previous: Bug checklist, Up: Reporting bugs

#### 2.6.2 Mailing lists

Web2c and Kpathsea in general are discussed on the mailing list tex-k@mail.tug.org. To join, email tex-k-request@mail.tug.org with a line consisting of

         subscribe you@your.preferred.email.address

in the body of the message.

You do not need to join to submit a report, nor will it affect whether you get a response. There is no Usenet newsgroup equivalent (if you can be the one to set this up, email tex-k-request). Traffic on the list is fairly light, and is mainly bug reports and enhancement requests to the software. The best way to decide if you want to join or not is read some of the archives from ftp://ftp.tug.org/mail/archives/tex-k/.

Be aware that large data files are sometimes included in bug reports. If this is a problem for you, do not join the list.

If you only want announcements of new releases, not bug reports and discussion, join tex-archive@math.utah.edu (via mail to tex-archive-request@math.utah.edu).

If you are looking for general TeX help, such as how to use LaTeX, please use the mailing list info-tex@shsu.edu mailing list, which is gatewayed to the comp.text.tex Usenet newsgroup (or post to the newsgroup; the gateway is bidirectional).

Next: Logging, Previous: Mailing lists, Up: Reporting bugs

#### 2.6.3 Debugging

Kpathsea provides a number of runtime debugging options, detailed below by their names and corresponding numeric values. When the files you expect aren't being found, the thing to do is enable these options and examine the output.

You can set these with some runtime argument (e.g., -d) to the program; in that case, you should use the numeric values described in the program's documentation (which, for Dvipsk and Xdvik, are different than those below). It's best to give the -d (or whatever) option first, for maximal output. Dvipsk and Xdvik have additional program-specific debugging options as well.

You can also set the environment variable `KPATHSEA_DEBUG`; in this case, you should use the numbers below. If you run the program under a debugger and set the variable `kpathsea_debug`, also use the numbers below.

In any case, by far the simplest value to use is -1, which will turn on all debugging output. This is usually better than guessing which particular values will yield the output you need.

Debugging output always goes to standard error, so you can redirect it easily. For example, in Bourne-compatible shells:

         dvips -d -1 ... 2>/tmp/debug

It is sometimes helpful to run the standalone Kpsewhich utility (see Invoking kpsewhich), instead of the original program.

In any case, you can not use the names below; you must always use somebody's numbers. (Sorry.) To set more than one option, just sum the corresponding numbers.

`KPSE_DEBUG_STAT` (1)
  Report stat(2) calls. This is useful for verifying that your directory structure is not forcing Kpathsea to do many additional file tests (see Slow path searching, and see Subdirectory expansion). If you are using an up-to-date ls-R database (see Filename database), this should produce no output unless a nonexistent file that must exist is searched for.
`KPSE_DEBUG_HASH` (2)
  Report lookups in all hash tables: ls-R and aliases (see Filename database); font aliases (see Fontmap); and config file values (see Config files). Useful when expected values are not being found, e.g.., file searches are looking at the disk instead of using ls-R.
`KPSE_DEBUG_FOPEN` (4)
  Report file openings and closings. Especially useful when your system's file table is full, for seeing which files have been opened but never closed. In case you want to set breakpoints in a debugger: this works by redefining fopen (fclose) to be kpse_fopen_trace (kpse_fclose_trace).
`KPSE_DEBUG_PATHS` (8)
  Report general path information for each file type Kpathsea is asked to search. This is useful when you are trying to track down how a particular path got defined—from texmf.cnf, config.ps, an environment variable, the compile-time default, etc. This is the contents of the `kpse_format_info_type` structure defined in tex-file.h.
`KPSE_DEBUG_EXPAND` (16)
  Report the directory list corresponding to each path element Kpathsea searches. This is only relevant when Kpathsea searches the disk, since ls-R searches don't look through directory lists in this way.
`KPSE_DEBUG_SEARCH` (32)
  Report on each file search: the name of the file searched for, the path searched in, whether or not the file must exist (when drivers search for cmr10.vf, it need not exist), and whether or not we are collecting all occurrences of the file in the path (as with, e.g., texmf.cnf and texfonts.map), or just the first (as with most lookups). This can help you correlate what Kpathsea is doing with what is in your input file.
`KPSE_DEBUG_VARS` (64)
  Report the value of each variable Kpathsea looks up. This is useful for verifying that variables do indeed obtain their correct values.
`GSFTOPK_DEBUG` (128)
  Activates debugging printout specific to `gsftopk` program.
`MAKETEX_DEBUG` (512)
  If you use the optional `mktex` programs instead of the traditional shell scripts, this will report the name of the site file (mktex.cnf by default) which is read, directories created by `mktexdir`, the full path of the ls-R database built by `mktexlsr`, font map searches, `MT_FEATURES` in effect, parameters from `mktexnam`, filenames added by `mktexupd`, and some subsidiary commands run by the programs.
`MAKETEX_FINE_DEBUG` (1024)
  When the optional `mktex` programs are used, this will print additional debugging info from functions internal to these programs.

Debugging output from Kpathsea is always written to standard error, and begins with the string kdebug:. (Except for hash table buckets, which just start with the number, but you can only get that output running under a debugger. See comments at the `hash_summary_only` variable in kpathsea/db.c.)

Next: Common problems, Previous: Debugging, Up: Reporting bugs

#### 2.6.4 Logging

Kpathsea can record the time and filename found for each successful search. This may be useful in finding good candidates for deletion when your filesystem is full, or in discovering usage patterns at your site.

To do this, define the environment or config file variable `TEXMFLOG`. The value is the name of the file to append the information to. The file is created if it doesn't exist, and appended to if it does.

Each successful search turns into one line in the log file: two words separated by a space. The first word is the time of the search, as the integer number of seconds since “the epoch”, i.e., UTC midnight 1 January 1970 (more precisely, the result of the `time` system call). The second word is the filename.

For example, after `setenv TEXMFLOG /tmp/log`, running Dvips on story.dvi appends the following lines:

         774455887 /usr/local/share/texmf/dvips/config.ps
         774455887 /usr/local/share/texmf/dvips/psfonts.map
         774455888 /usr/local/share/texmf/dvips/texc.pro
         774455888 /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/pk/ljfour/public/cm/cmbx10.600pk
         774455889 /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/pk/ljfour/public/cm/cmsl10.600pk
         774455889 /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/pk/ljfour/public/cm/cmr10.600pk
         774455889 /usr/local/share/texmf/dvips/texc.pro

Only filenames that are absolute are recorded, to preserve some semblance of privacy.

Previous: Logging, Up: Reporting bugs

#### 2.6.5 Common problems

Here are some common problems with configuration, compilation, linking, execution, ...

Next: Slow path searching, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.1 Unable to find files

If a program complains it cannot find fonts (or other input files), any of several things might be wrong. In any case, you may find the debugging options helpful. See Debugging.

- Perhaps you simply haven't installed all the necessary files; the basic fonts and input files are distributed separately from the programs. See unixtex.ftp.
- You have (perhaps unknowingly) told Kpathsea to use search paths that don't reflect where the files actually are. One common cause is having environment variables set from a previous installation, thus overriding what you carefully set in texmf.cnf (see Supported file formats). System /etc/profile or other files such may be the culprit.
- Your files reside in a directory that is only pointed to via a symbolic link, in a leaf directory and is not listed in ls-R.

  Unfortunately, Kpathsea's subdirectory searching has an irremediable deficiency: If a directory d being searched for subdirectories contains plain files and symbolic links to other directories, but no true subdirectories, d will be considered a leaf directory, i.e., the symbolic links will not be followed. See Subdirectory expansion.

  You can work around this problem by creating an empty dummy subdirectory in d. Then d will no longer be a leaf, and the symlinks will be followed.

  The directory immediately followed by the // in the path specification, however, is always searched for subdirectories, even if it is a leaf. Presumably you would not have asked for the directory to be searched for subdirectories if you didn't want it to be.

- If the fonts (or whatever) don't already exist, `mktexpk` (or `mktexmf` or `mktextfm`) will try to create them. If these rather complicated shell scripts fail, you'll eventually get an error message saying something like Can't find font fontname. The best solution is to fix (or at least report) the bug in `mktexpk`; the workaround is to generate the necessary fonts by hand with Metafont, or to grab them from a CTAN site (see unixtex.ftp).
- There is a bug in the library. See Reporting bugs.

Next: Unable to generate fonts, Previous: Unable to find files, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.2 Slow path searching

If your program takes an excessively long time to find fonts or other input files, but does eventually succeed, here are some possible culprits:

- Most likely, you just have a lot of directories to search, and that takes a noticeable time. The solution is to create and maintain a separate ls-R file that lists all the files in your main TeX hierarchy. See Filename database. Kpathsea always uses ls-R if it's present; there's no need to recompile or reconfigure any of the programs.
- Your recursively-searched directories (e.g., /usr/local/share/texmf/fonts//), contain a mixture of files and directories. This prevents Kpathsea from using a useful optimization (see Subdirectory expansion).

  It is best to have only directories (and perhaps a README) in the upper levels of the directory structure, and it's very important to have only files, and no subdirectories, in the leaf directories where the dozens of TFM, PK, or whatever files reside.

In any case, you may find the debugging options helpful in determining precisely when the disk or network is being pounded. See Debugging.

Next: TeX or Metafont failing, Previous: Slow path searching, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.3 Unable to generate fonts

This can happen if either `mktexpk` hasn't been installed properly, or if the local installation of Metafont isn't correct.

If `mf` is a command not found by `mktexpk`, then you need to install Metafont (see unixtex.ftp).

If Metafont runs, but generates fonts at the wrong resolution, you need to be sure the M and D lines in your Dvips configuration file match (see Config files (Dvips)). For example, if `mktexpk` is generating 300dpi fonts, but you need 600dpi fonts, you should have:

         M ljfour
         D 600

If Metafont runs but generates fonts at a resolution of 2602dpi (and prints out the name of each character as well as just a character number, and maybe tries to display the characters), then your Metafont base file probably hasn't been made properly. (It's using the default `proof` mode, instead of an actual device mode.) To make a proper plain.base, assuming the local mode definitions are contained in a file modes.mf, run the following command (assuming Unix):

         inimf "plain; input modes; dump"

Then copy the plain.base file from the current directory to where the base files are stored on your system (/usr/local/share/texmf/web2c by default), and make a link (either hard or soft) from plain.base to mf.base in that directory. See inimf invocation (Web2c).

Next: Empty Makefiles, Previous: Unable to generate fonts, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.4 TeX or Metafont failing

If TeX or Metafont get a segmentation fault or otherwise fail while running a normal input file, the problem is usually a compiler bug (unlikely as that may sound). Even if the trip and trap tests are passed, problems may lurk. Optimization occasionally causes trouble in programs other than TeX and Metafont themselves, too.

Insufficient swap space may also cause core dumps or other erratic behavior.

For a workaround, if you enabled any optimization flags, it's best to omit optimization entirely. In any case, the way to find the facts is to run the program under the debugger and see where it's failing.

Also, if you have trouble with a system C compiler, I advise trying the GNU C compiler. And vice versa, unfortunately; but in that case I also recommend reporting a bug to the GCC mailing list; see Bugs (Using and Porting GNU CC).

To report compiler bugs effectively requires perseverance and perspicacity: you must find the miscompiled line, and that usually involves delving backwards in time from the point of error, checking through TeX's (or whatever program's) data structures. Things are not helped by all-too-common bugs in the debugger itself. Good luck.

One known cause of trouble is the way arrays are handled. Some of the Pascal arrays have a lower index other than 0, and the C code will take the pointer to the allocated memory, subtract the lower index, and use the resulting pointer for the array. While this trick often works, ANSI C doesn't guarantee that it will. It it known to fail on HP-UX 10 mchines when the native compiler is used, unless the +u compiler switch was specified. Using GCC will work on this platform as well.

Next: XtStrings, Previous: TeX or Metafont failing, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.5 Empty Makefiles

On some systems (NetBSD, FreeBSD, AIX 4.1, and Mach10), `configure` may fail to properly create the Makefiles. Instead, you get an error which looks something like this:

         prompt$ ./configure
         ...
         creating Makefile
         sed: 1: "\\@^ac_include make/pat ...": \ can not be used as a string delimiter

So far as I know, the bug here is in `/bin/sh` on these systems. I don't have access to a machine running any of them, so if someone can find a workaround that avoids the quoting bug, I'd be most grateful. (Search for `ac_include` in the `configure` script to get to the problematic code.)

It should work to run `bash configure`, instead of using `/bin/sh`. You can get Bash from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu and mirrors.

Another possible cause (reported for NeXT) is a bug in the `sed` command. In that case the error may look like this:

         Unrecognized command: \@^ac_include make/paths.make@r make/paths.make

In this case, installing GNU `sed` should solve the problem. You can get GNU `sed` from the same places as Bash.

Next: dlopen, Previous: Empty Makefiles, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.6 `XtStrings`

You may find that linking X programs results in an error from the linker that XtStrings is undefined, something like this:

         gcc -o virmf ...
         .../x11.c:130: undefined reference to `XtStrings'

This generally happens because of a mismatch between the X include files with which you compiled and the X libraries with which you linked; often, the include files are from MIT and the libraries from Sun.

The solution is to use the same X distribution for compilation and linking. Probably configure was unable to guess the proper directories from your installation. You can use the `configure` options --x-includes=path and --x-libraries=path to explicitly specify them.

Next: ShellWidgetClass, Previous: XtStrings, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.7 `dlopen`

(This section adapted from the file dlsym.c in the X distribution.)

The `Xlib` library uses the standard C function `wcstombs`. Under SunOS 4.1, `wcstombs` uses the dlsym interface defined in libdl.so. Unfortunately, the SunOS 4.1 distribution does not include a static libdl.a library.

As a result, if you try to link an X program statically under SunOS, you may get undefined references to `dlopen`, `dlsym`, and `dlclose`. One workaround is to include these definitions when you link:

         void *dlopen() { return 0; }
         void *dlsym()  { return 0; }
         int dlclose()  { return -1; }

These are contained in the dlsym.c file in the MIT X distribution.

Next: Pointer combination warnings, Previous: dlopen, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.8 `ShellWidgetClass`

(This section adapted from the `comp.sys.sun.admin` FAQ.)

If you are linking with Sun's OpenWindows libraries in SunOS 4.1.x, you may get undefined symbols `_get_wmShellWidgetClass` and `_get_applicationShellWidgetClass` when linking. This problem does not arise using the standard MIT X libraries under SunOS.

The cause is bugs in the `Xmu` shared library as shipped from Sun. There are several fixes:

- Install the free MIT distribution from ftp.x.org and mirrors.
- Get the OpenWindows patches listed below.
- Statically link the `Xmu` library into the executable.
- Avoid using `Xmu` at all. If you are compiling Metafont, see Online Metafont graphics (Web2c). If you are compiling Xdvi, see the `-DNOTOOL` option in xdvik/INSTALL.
- Ignore the errors. The binary runs fine regardless.

Here is the information for getting the two patches:

         Patch ID: 100512-02
         Bug ID's: 1086793, 1086912, 1074766
         Description: 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 libXt jumbo patch

         Patch ID: 100573-03
         Bug ID: 1087332
         Description: 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 undefined symbols when using shared libXmu.

The way to statically link with `libXmu` depends on whether you are using a Sun compiler (e.g., `cc`) or `gcc`. If the latter, alter the `x_libs` Make variable to include

         -static -lXmu -dynamic

If you are using the Sun compiler, use -Bstatic and -Bdynamic.

Previous: ShellWidgetClass, Up: Common problems

##### 2.6.5.9 Pointer combination warnings

When compiling with old C compilers, you may get some warnings about “illegal pointer combinations”. These are spurious; just ignore them. I decline to clutter up the source with casts to get rid of them.

Next: TeX support, Previous: Installation, Up: Top

## 3 Path searching

This chapter describes the generic path searching mechanism Kpathsea provides. For information about searching for particular file types (e.g., TeX fonts), see the next chapter.

Next: Path sources, Up: Path searching

### 3.1 Searching overview

A search path is a colon-separated list of path elements, which are directory names with a few extra frills. A search path can come from (a combination of) many sources; see below. To look up a file foo along a path .:/dir, Kpathsea checks each element of the path in turn: first ./foo, then /dir/foo, returning the first match (or possibly all matches).

The “colon” and “slash” mentioned here aren't necessarily : and / on non-Unix systems. Kpathsea tries to adapt to other operating systems' conventions.

To check a particular path element e, Kpathsea first sees if a prebuilt database (see Filename database) applies to e, i.e., if the database is in a directory that is a prefix of e. If so, the path specification is matched against the contents of the database.

If the database does not exist, or does not apply to this path element, or contains no matches, the filesystem is searched (if this was not forbidden by the specification with !! and if the file being searched for must exist). Kpathsea constructs the list of directories that correspond to this path element, and then checks in each for the file being searched for. (To help speed future lookups of files in the same directory, the directory in which a file is found is floated to the top of the directory list.)

The “file must exist” condition comes into play with VF files and input files read by the TeX \openin command. These files may not exist (consider cmr10.vf), and so it would be wrong to search the disk for them. Therefore, if you fail to update ls-R when you install a new VF file, it will never be found.

Each path element is checked in turn: first the database, then the disk. If a match is found, the search stops and the result is returned. This avoids possibly-expensive processing of path specifications that are never needed on a particular run. (Unless the search explicitly requested all matches.)

Although the simplest and most common path element is a directory name, Kpathsea supports additional features in search paths: layered default values, environment variable names, config file values, users' home directories, and recursive subdirectory searching. Thus, we say that Kpathsea expands a path element, meaning transforming all the magic specifications into the basic directory name or names. This process is described in the sections below. It happens in the same order as the sections.

Exception to all of the above: If the filename being searched for is absolute or explicitly relative, i.e., starts with / or ./ or ../, Kpathsea simply checks if that file exists.

Ordinarily, if Kpathsea tries to access a file or directory that cannot be read, it gives a warning. This is so you will be alerted to directories or files that accidentally lack read permission (for example, a lost+found). If you prefer not to see these warnings, include the value readable in the `TEX_HUSH` environment variable or config file value.

This generic path searching algorithm is implemented in kpathsea/pathsearch.c. It is employed by a higher-level algorithm when searching for a file of a particular type (see File lookup, and Glyph lookup).

Next: Path expansion, Previous: Searching overview, Up: Path searching

### 3.2 Path sources

A search path can come from many sources. In the order in which Kpathsea uses them:

1. A user-set environment variable, e.g., `TEXINPUTS`. Environment variables with an underscore and the program name appended override; for example, `TEXINPUTS_latex` overrides `TEXINPUTS` if the program being run is named latex.
2. A program-specific configuration file, e.g., an S /a:/b line in Dvips' config.ps (see Config files (Dvips)).
3. A line in a Kpathsea configuration file texmf.cnf, e.g., TEXINPUTS=/c:/d (see below).
4. The compile-time default (specified in kpathsea/paths.h).

You can see each of these values for a given search path by using the debugging options (see Debugging).

These sources may be combined via default expansion (see Default expansion).

Up: Path sources

#### 3.2.1 Config files

As mentioned above, Kpathsea reads runtime configuration files named texmf.cnf for search path and other definitions. The search path used to look for these configuration files is named `TEXMFCNF`, and is constructed in the usual way, as described above, except that configuration files cannot be used to define the path, naturally; also, an ls-R database is not used to search for them.

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. Thus, if the search path is .:$TEXMF, values from ./texmf.cnf override those from $TEXMF/texmf.cnf.

While (or instead of) reading this description, you may find it helpful to look at the distributed texmf.cnf, which uses or at least mentions most features. The format of texmf.cnf files follows:

- Comments start with % and continue to the end of the line.
- Blank lines are ignored.
- A \ at the end of a line acts as a continuation character, i.e., the next line is appended. Whitespace at the beginning of continuation lines is not ignored.
- Each remaining line must look like

                variable [. progname] [=] value

  where the = and surrounding whitespace is optional.

- The variable name may contain any character other than whitespace, =, or ., but sticking to A-Za-z_ is safest.
- If .progname is present, the definition only applies if the program that is running is named (i.e., the last component of `argv[0]` is) progname or progname.exe. This allows different flavors of TeX to have different search paths, for example.
- value may contain any characters except % and @. (These restrictions are only necessary because of the processing done on texmf.cnf at build time, so you can stick those characters in after installation if you have to.) The $var.prog feature is not available on the right-hand side; instead, you must use an additional variable (see below for example). A ; in value is translated to : if running under Unix; this is useful to write a single texmf.cnf which can be used under both Unix and NT. (If you really want ;'s in your filenames, add -DALLOW_SEMICOLON_IN_FILENAMES to `CFLAGS`.)
- All definitions are read before anything is expanded, so you can use variables before they are defined (like Make, unlike most other programs).

Here is a configuration file fragment illustrating most of these points:

         % TeX input files -- i.e., anything to be found by \input or \openin ...
         latex209_inputs = .:$TEXMF/tex/latex209//:$TEXMF/tex//
         latex2e_inputs = .:$TEXMF/tex/latex//:$TEXMF/tex//
         TEXINPUTS = .:$TEXMF/tex//
         TEXINPUTS.latex209 = $latex209_inputs
         TEXINPUTS.latex2e = $latex2e_inputs
         TEXINPUTS.latex = $latex2e_inputs

Although this format has obvious similarities to Bourne shell scripts—change the comment character to `#`, disallow spaces around the `=`, and get rid of the `.`name convention, and it could be run through the shell. But there seemed little advantage to doing this, since all the information would have to passed back to Kpathsea and parsed there anyway, since the `sh` process couldn't affect its parent's environment.

The implementation of all this is in kpathsea/cnf.c.

Next: Filename database, Previous: Path sources, Up: Path searching

### 3.3 Path expansion

Kpathsea recognizes certain special characters and constructions in search paths, similar to that in shells. As a general example: ~$USER/{foo,bar}//baz expands to all subdirectories under directories foo and bar in `$USER`'s home directory that contain a directory or file baz. These expansions are explained in the sections below.

Next: Variable expansion, Up: Path expansion

#### 3.3.1 Default expansion

If the highest-priority search path (see Path sources) contains an extra colon (i.e., leading, trailing, or doubled), Kpathsea inserts at that point the next-highest-priority search path that is defined. If that inserted path has an extra colon, the same happens with the next-highest. (An extra colon in the compile-time default value has unpredictable results, so installers beware.)

For example, given an environment variable setting

         setenv TEXINPUTS /home/karl:

and a `TEXINPUTS` value from texmf.cnf of

         .:$TEXMF//tex

then the final value used for searching will be:

         /home/karl:.:$TEXMF//tex

Since Kpathsea looks for multiple configuration files, it would be natural to expect that (for example) an extra colon in ./texmf.cnf would expand to the path in $TEXMF/texmf.cnf. Or, with Dvips' configuration files, that an extra colon in config.$PRINTER would expand to the path in config.ps. This doesn't happen. It's not clear this would be desirable in all cases, and trying to devise a way to specify the path to which the extra colon should expand seemed truly baroque. Technicality: Since it would be useless to insert the default value in more than one place, Kpathsea changes only one extra : and leaves any others in place (they will eventually be ignored). Kpathsea checks first for a leading :, then a trailing :, then a doubled :.

You can trace this by debugging “paths” (see Debugging). Default expansion is implemented in the source file kpathsea/kdefault.c.

Next: Tilde expansion, Previous: Default expansion, Up: Path expansion

#### 3.3.2 Variable expansion

$foo or ${foo} in a path element is replaced by (1) the value of an environment variable foo (if defined); (2) the value of foo from texmf.cnf (if defined); (3) the empty string.

If the character after the $ is alphanumeric or _, the variable name consists of all consecutive such characters. If the character after the $ is a {, the variable name consists of everything up to the next } (braces may not be nested around variable names). Otherwise, Kpathsea gives a warning and ignores the $ and its following character.

You must quote the `$`'s and braces as necessary for your shell. Shell variable values cannot be seen by Kpathsea, i.e., ones defined by `set` in C shells and without `export` in Bourne shells.

For example, given

         setenv tex /home/texmf
         setenv TEXINPUTS .:$tex:${tex}prev

the final `TEXINPUTS` path is the three directories:

         .:/home/texmf:/home/texmfprev

The .progname suffix on variables and _progname on environment variable names are not implemented for general variable expansions. These are only recognized when search paths are initialized (see Path sources).

Variable expansion is implemented in the source file kpathsea/variable.c.

Next: Brace expansion, Previous: Variable expansion, Up: Path expansion

#### 3.3.3 Tilde expansion

A leading ~ in a path element is replaced by the value of the environment variable `HOME`, or . if `HOME` is not set.

A leading ~user in a path element is replaced by user's home directory from the system passwd database.

For example,

         setenv TEXINPUTS ~/mymacros:

will prepend a directory mymacros in your home directory to the default path.

As a special case, if a home directory ends in /, the trailing slash is dropped, to avoid inadvertently creating a // construct in the path. For example, if the home directory of the user root is /, the path element ~root/mymacros expands to just /mymacros, not //mymacros.

Tilde expansion is implemented in the source file kpathsea/tilde.c.

Next: KPSE_DOT expansion, Previous: Tilde expansion, Up: Path expansion

#### 3.3.4 Brace expansion

x{a,b}y expands to x a y:x b y. For example:

         foo/{1,2}/baz

expands to foo/1/baz:foo/2/baz. : is the path separator on the current system; e.g., on a DOS system, it's ;.

Braces can be nested; for example, x{A,B{1,2}}y expands to xAy:xB1y:xB2y.

Multiple non-nested braces are expanded from right to left; for example, x{A,B}{1,2}y expands to x{A,B}1y:x{A,B}2y, which expands to xA1y:xB1y:xA2y:xB2y.

This feature can be used to implement multiple TeX hierarchies, by assigning a brace list to `$TEXMF`, as mentioned in texmf.in.

You can also use the path separator in stead of the comma. The last example could have been written x{A:B}{1:2}y.

Brace expansion is implemented in the source file kpathsea/expand.c. It is a modification of the Bash sources, and is thus covered by the GNU General Public License, rather than the Library General Public License that covers the rest of Kpathsea.

Next: Subdirectory expansion, Previous: Brace expansion, Up: Path expansion

#### 3.3.5 `KPSE_DOT` expansion

When `KPSE_DOT` is defined in the environment, it names a directory that should be considered the current directory for the purpose of looking up files in the search paths. This feature is needed by the mktex... scripts mktex scripts, because these change the working directory. You should not ever define it yourself.

Previous: KPSE_DOT expansion, Up: Path expansion

#### 3.3.6 Subdirectory expansion

Two or more consecutive slashes in a path element following a directory d is replaced by all subdirectories of d: first those subdirectories directly under d, then the subsubdirectories under those, and so on. At each level, the order in which the directories are searched is unspecified. (It's “directory order”, and definitely not alphabetical.)

If you specify any filename components after the //, only subdirectories which match those components are included. For example, /a//b would expand into directories /a/1/b, /a/2/b, /a/1/1/b, and so on, but not /a/b/c or /a/1.

You can include multiple // constructs in the path.

// at the beginning of a path is ignored; you didn't really want to search every directory on the system, did you?

I should mention one related implementation trick, which I took from GNU find. Matthew Farwell suggested it, and David MacKenzie implemented it.

The trick is that in every real Unix implementation (as opposed to the POSIX specification), a directory which contains no subdirectories will have exactly two links (namely, one for . and one for ..). That is to say, the `st_nlink` field in the stat structure will be two. Thus, we don't have to stat everything in the bottom-level (leaf) directories—we can just check `st_nlink`, notice it's two, and do no more work.

But if you have a directory that contains a single subdirectory and 500 regular files, `st_nlink` will be 3, and Kpathsea has to stat every one of those 501 entries. Therein lies slowness.

You can disable the trick by undefining `UNIX_ST_LINK` in kpathsea/config.h. (It is undefined by default except under Unix.)

Unfortunately, in some cases files in leaf directories are `stat`'d: if the path specification is, say, $TEXMF/fonts//pk//, then files in a subdirectory .../pk, even if it is a leaf, are checked. The reason cannot be explained without reference to the implementation, so read kpathsea/elt-dirs.c (search for may descend) if you are curious. And if you can find a way to solve the problem, please let me know.

Subdirectory expansion is implemented in the source file kpathsea/elt-dirs.c.

Next: Invoking kpsewhich, Previous: Path expansion, Up: Path searching

### 3.4 Filename database (`ls-R`)

Kpathsea goes to some lengths to minimize disk accesses for searches (see Subdirectory expansion). Nevertheless, at installations with enough directories, searching each possible directory for a given file can take an excessively long time (depending on the speed of the disk, whether it's NFS-mounted, how patient you are, etc.).

In practice, a font tree containing the standard PostScript and PCL fonts is large enough for searching to be noticeably slow on typical systems these days. Therefore, Kpathsea can use an externally-built “database” file named ls-R that maps files to directories, thus avoiding the need to exhaustively search the disk.

A second database file aliases allows you to give additional names to the files listed in ls-R. This can be helpful to adapt to “8.3” filename conventions in source files.

The ls-R and aliases features are implemented in the source file kpathsea/db.c.

Next: Filename aliases, Up: Filename database

#### 3.4.1 ls-R

As mentioned above, you must name the main filename database ls-R. You can put one at the root of each TeX installation hierarchy you wish to search (`$TEXMF` by default); most sites have only one hierarchy. Kpathsea looks for ls-R files along the `TEXMFDBS` path, so that should presumably match the list of hierarchies.

The recommended way to create and maintain ls-R is to run the `mktexlsr` script, which is installed in $(bindir) (/usr/local/bin by default). That script goes to some trouble to follow symbolic links as necessary, etc. It's also invoked by the distributed mktex... scripts.

At its simplest, though, you can build ls-R with the command

         cd /your/texmf/root && ls -LAR ./ >ls-R

presuming your `ls` produces the right output format (see the section below). GNU `ls`, for example, outputs in this format. Also presuming your `ls` hasn't been aliased in a system file (e.g., /etc/profile) to something problematic, e.g., ls --color=tty. In that case, you will have to disable the alias before generating ls-R. For the precise definition of the file format, see Database format.

Regardless of whether you use the supplied script or your own, you will almost certainly want to invoke it via `cron`, so when you make changes in the installed files (say if you install a new LaTeX package), ls-R will be automatically updated.

The -A option to `ls` includes files beginning with . (except for . and ..), such as the file .tex included with the LaTeX tools package. (On the other hand, directories whose names begin with . are always ignored.)

If your system does not support symbolic links, omit the -L.

`ls -LAR` /your/texmf/root will also work. But using ./ avoids embedding absolute pathnames, so the hierarchy can be easily transported. It also avoids possible trouble with automounters or other network filesystem conventions.

Kpathsea warns you if it finds an ls-R file, but the file does not contain any usable entries. The usual culprit is running plain ls -R instead of ls -LR ./ or ls -R /your/texmf/root. Another possibility is some system directory name starting with a . (perhaps if you are using AFS); Kpathsea ignores everything under such directories.

Because the database may be out-of-date for a particular run, if a file is not found in the database, by default Kpathsea goes ahead and searches the disk. If a particular path element begins with !!, however, only the database will be searched for that element, never the disk. If the database does not exist, nothing will be searched. Because this can surprise users (“I see the font foo.tfm when I do an `ls`; why can't Dvips find it?”), it is not in any of the default search paths.

Next: Database format, Previous: ls-R, Up: Filename database

#### 3.4.2 Filename aliases

In some circumstances, you may wish to find a file under several names. For example, suppose a TeX document was created using a DOS system and tries to read longtabl.sty. But now it's being run on a Unix system, and the file has its original name, longtable.sty. The file won't be found. You need to give the actual file longtable.sty an alias longtabl.sty.

You can handle this by creating a file aliases as a companion to the ls-R for the hierarchy containing the file in question. (You must have an ls-R for the alias feature to work.)

The format of aliases is simple: two whitespace-separated words per line; the first is the real name longtable.sty, and second is the alias (longtabl.sty). These must be base filenames, with no directory components. longtable.sty must be in the sibling ls-R.

Also, blank lines and lines starting with % or # are ignored in aliases, to allow for comments.

If a real file longtabl.sty exists, it is used regardless of any aliases.

Previous: Filename aliases, Up: Filename database

#### 3.4.3 Database format

The “database” read by Kpathsea is a line-oriented file of plain text. The format is that generated by GNU (and most other) `ls` programs given the -R option, as follows.

- Blank lines are ignored.
- If a line begins with / or ./ or ../ and ends with a colon, it's the name of a directory. (../ lines aren't useful, however, and should not be generated.)
- All other lines define entries in the most recently seen directory. `/`'s in such lines will produce possibly-strange results.
- Files with no preceding directory line are ignored.

For example, here's the first few lines of ls-R (which totals about 30K bytes) on my system:

         bibtex
         dvips
         fonts
         ls-R
         metafont
         metapost
         tex
         web2c

         ./bibtex:
         bib
         bst
         doc

         ./bibtex/bib:
         asi.bib
         btxdoc.bib
         ...

Previous: Filename database, Up: Path searching

### 3.5 `kpsewhich`: Standalone path searching

The Kpsewhich program exercises the path searching functionality independent of any particular application. This can also be useful as a sort of `find` program to locate files in your TeX hierarchies, perhaps in administrative scripts. It is used heavily in the distributed mktex... scripts.

Synopsis:

         kpsewhich option... filename...

The options and filename(s) to look up can be intermixed. Options can start with either - or --, and any unambiguous abbreviation is accepted.

Next: Auxiliary tasks, Up: Invoking kpsewhich

#### 3.5.1 Path searching options

Kpsewhich looks up each non-option argument on the command line as a filename, and returns the first file found. There is no option to return all the files with a particular name (you can run the Unix find utility for that, see Invoking find (GNU find utilities)).

Various options alter the path searching behavior:

--dpi=num
  Set the resolution to num; this only affects gf and pk lookups. -D is a synonym, for compatibility with Dvips. Default is 600.
--engine=name
  Set the engine name to name. By default it is not set. The engine name is used in some search paths to allow files with the same name but used by different engines to coexist.
--format=name
  Set the format for lookup to name. By default, the format is guessed from the filename, with tex being used if nothing else fits. The recognized filename extensions (including any leading .) are also allowable names.

  All formats also have a name, which is the only way to specify formats with no associated suffix. For example, for Dvips configuration files you can use --format="dvips config". (The quotes are for the sake of the shell.)

  Here's the current list of recognized names and the associated suffixes. See Supported file formats, for more information on each of these.

                gf: gf
                pk: pk
                bitmap font
                afm: .afm
                base: .base
                bib: .bib
                bst: .bst
                cnf: .cnf
                ls-R: ls-R
                fmt: .fmt
                map: .map
                mem: .mem
                mf: .mf
                mfpool: .pool
                mft: .mft
                mp: .mp
                mppool: .pool
                MetaPost support
                ocp: .ocp
                ofm: .ofm .tfm
                opl: .opl
                otp: .otp
                ovf: .ovf
                ovp: .ovp
                graphic/figure: .eps .epsi
                tex: .tex
                TeX system documentation
                texpool: .pool
                TeX system sources
                PostScript header/font: .pro
                Troff fonts
                tfm: .tfm
                type1 fonts: .pfa .pfb
                vf: .vf
                dvips config
                ist: .ist
                truetype fonts: .ttf .ttc
                type42 fonts
                web2c files
                other text files
                other binary files
                misc fonts
                web: .web
                cweb: .w .web
                enc: .enc
                cmap: .cmap
                sfd: .sfd
                opentype fonts
                pdftex config
                lig files: .lig
                texmfscripts

  This option and --path are mutually exclusive.

--interactive
  After processing the command line, read additional filenames to look up from standard input.
-mktex=filetype
-no-mktex=filetype
  Turn on or off the mktex script associated with filetype. The only values that make sense for filetype are pk, mf, tex, and tfm. By default, all are off in Kpsewhich. See mktex scripts.
--mode=string
  Set the mode name to string; this also only affects gf and pk lookups. No default: any mode will be found. See mktex script arguments.
--must-exist
  Do everything possible to find the files, notably including searching the disk. By default, only the ls-R database is checked, in the interest of efficiency.
--path=string
  Search along the path string (colon-separated as usual), instead of guessing the search path from the filename. // and all the usual expansions are supported (see Path expansion). This option and --format are mutually exclusive. To output the complete directory expansion of a path, instead of doing a one-shot lookup, see --expand-path in the following section.
--progname=name
  Set the program name to name; default is kpsewhich. This can affect the search paths via the .prognam feature in configuration files (see Config files).

Next: Standard options, Previous: Path searching options, Up: Invoking kpsewhich

#### 3.5.2 Auxiliary tasks

Kpsewhich provides some additional features not strictly related to path lookup:

- --debug=num sets the debugging options to num. See Debugging.
- --var-value=variable output the value of variable.
- --expand-braces=string outputs the variable and brace expansion of string. See Path expansion.
- --expand-var=string outputs the variable expansion of string. For example, the mktex... scripts run kpsewhich --expand-var='$TEXMF' to find the root of the TeX system hierarchy. See Path expansion.
- --expand-path=string outputs the complete expansion of string as a colon-separated path. This is useful to construct a search path for a program that doesn't accept recursive subdirectory specifications.

  For one-shot uses of an arbitrary (not built in to Kpathsea) path, see --path in the previous section.

- --show-path=name shows the path that would be used for file lookups of file type name. Either a filename extension (pk, .vf, etc.) or an integer can be used, just as with --format, described in the previous section.

Previous: Auxiliary tasks, Up: Invoking kpsewhich

#### 3.5.3 Standard options

Kpsewhich accepts the standard GNU options:

- --help prints a help message on standard output and exits.
- --version prints the Kpathsea version number and exits.

Next: Programming, Previous: Path searching, Up: Top

## 4 TeX support

Although the basic features in Kpathsea can be used for any type of path searching, it came about (like all libraries) with a specific application in mind: I wrote Kpathsea specifically for TeX system programs. I had been struggling with the programs I was using (Dvips, Xdvi, and TeX itself) having slightly different notions of how to specify paths; and debugging was painful, since no code was shared.

Therefore, Kpathsea provides some TeX-specific formats and features. Indeed, many of the supposedly generic path searching features were provided because they seemed useful in that conTeXt (font lookup, particularly).

Kpathsea provides a standard way to search for files of any of the supported file types; glyph fonts are a bit different than all the rest. Searches are based solely on filenames, not file contents—if a GF file is named cmr10.600pk, it will be found as a PK file.

Next: File lookup, Up: TeX support

### 4.1 Supported file formats

Kpathsea has support for a number of file types. Each file type has a list of environment and config file variables that are checked to define the search path, and most have a default suffix that plays a role in finding files (see the next section). Some also define additional suffixes, and/or a program to be run to create missing files on the fly.

Since environment variables containing periods, such as TEXINPUTS.latex, are not allowed on some systems, Kpathsea looks for environment variables with an underscore, e.g., TEXINPUTS_latex (see Config files).

The following table lists the above information.

afm
  (Adobe font metrics, see Metric files (Dvips)) `AFMFONTS`; suffix .afm.
base
  (Metafont memory dump, see Memory dumps (Web2c)) `MFBASES`, `TEXMFINI`; suffix .base.
bib
  (BibTeX bibliography source, see bibtex invocation (Web2c)) `BIBINPUTS`, `TEXBIB`; suffix .bib.
bst
  (BibTeX style file, see Basic BibTeX style files (Web2c)) `BSTINPUTS`; suffix .bst.
cmap
  (character map files) `CMAPFONTS`; suffix .cmap.
cnf
  (Runtime configuration files, see Config files) `TEXMFCNF`; suffix .cnf.
cweb
  (CWEB input files) `CWEBINPUTS`; suffixes .w, .web; additional suffix .ch.
dvips config
  (Dvips config.* files, such as config.ps, see Config files (Dvips)) `TEXCONFIG`.
enc files
  (encoding vectors) `ENCFONTS`; suffix .enc.
fmt
  (TeX memory dump, see Memory dumps (Web2c)) `TEXFORMATS`, `TEXMFINI`; suffix .fmt.
gf
  (generic font bitmap, see Glyph files (Dvips)) program `FONTS`, `GFFONTS`, `GLYPHFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix gf.
graphic/figure
  (Encapsulated PostScript figures, see PostScript figures (Dvips)) `TEXPICTS`, `TEXINPUTS`; additional suffixes: .eps, .epsi.
ist
  (makeindex style files) `TEXINDEXSTYLE`, `INDEXSTYLE`; suffix .ist.
lig files
  (ligature definition files) `LIGFONTS`; suffix .lig.
ls-R
  (Filename databases, see Filename database) `TEXMFDBS`.
map
  (Fontmaps, see Fontmap) `TEXFONTMAPS`; suffix .map.
mem
  (MetaPost memory dump, see Memory dumps (Web2c)) `MPMEMS`, `TEXMFINI`; suffix .mem.
MetaPost support
  (MetaPost support files, used by DMP; see dmp invocation (Web2c)) `MPSUPPORT`.
mf
  (Metafont source, see mf invocation (Web2c)) `MFINPUTS`; suffix .mf; dynamic creation program: `mktexmf`.
mfpool
  (Metafont program strings, see pooltype invocation (Web2c)) `MFPOOL`, `TEXMFINI`; suffix .pool.
mft
  (`MFT` style file, see mft invocation (Web2c)) `MFTINPUTS`; suffix .mft.
misc fonts
  (font-related files that don't fit the other categories) `MISCFONTS`
mp
  (MetaPost source, see mpost invocation (Web2c)) `MPINPUTS`; suffix .mp.
mppool
  (MetaPost program strings, see pooltype invocation (Web2c)) `MPPOOL`, `TEXMFINI`; suffix .pool.
ocp
  (Omega compiled process files) `OCPINPUTS`;
  suffix .ocp; dynamic creation program: `MakeOmegaOCP`.
ofm
  (Omega font metrics) `OFMFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`;
  suffixes .ofm, .tfm; dynamic creation program: `MakeOmegaOFM`.
opentype fonts
  (OpenType fonts) `OPENTYPEFONTS`.
opl
  (Omega property lists) `OPLFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix .opl.
otp
  (Omega translation process files) `OTPINPUTS`; suffix .otp.
ovf
  (Omega virtual fonts) `OVFFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix .ovf.
ovp
  (Omega virtual property lists) `OVPFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix .ovp.
pdftex config
  (PDFTeX-specific configuration files) `PDFTEXCONFIG`.
pk
  (packed bitmap fonts, see Glyph files (Dvips)) PROGRAM `FONTS` (program being XDVI, etc.), `PKFONTS`, `TEXPKS`, `GLYPHFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix pk; dynamic creation program: `mktexpk`.
PostScript header
  (downloadable PostScript, see Header files (Dvips)) `TEXPSHEADERS`, `PSHEADERS`; additional suffix .pro.
subfont definition files
  (subfont definition files) `SFDFONTS` suffix .sfd.
tex
  (TeX source, see tex invocation (Web2c)) `TEXINPUTS`; suffix .tex; additional suffixes: none, because such a list cannot be complete; dynamic creation program: `mktextex`.
TeX system documentation
  (Documentation files for the TeX system) `TEXDOCS`.
TeX system sources
  (Source files for the TeX system) `TEXSOURCES`.
texmfscripts
  (Architecture-independent executables distributed in the texmf tree) `TEXMFSCRIPTS`.
texpool
  (TeX program strings, see pooltype invocation (Web2c)) `TEXPOOL`, `TEXMFINI`; suffix .pool.
tfm
  (TeX font metrics, see Metric files (Dvips)) `TFMFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix .tfm; dynamic creation program: `mktextfm`.
Troff fonts
  (Troff fonts, used by DMP; see DMP invocation (Web2c)) `TRFONTS`.
truetype fonts
  (TrueType outline fonts) `TTFONTS`; suffixes .ttf, .ttc.
type1 fonts
  (Type 1 PostScript outline fonts, see Glyph files (Dvips)) `T1FONTS`, `T1INPUTS`, `TEXPSHEADERS`, `DVIPSHEADERS`; suffixes .pfa, .pfb.
type42 fonts
  (Type 42 PostScript outline fonts) `T42FONTS`.
vf
  (virtual fonts, see Virtual fonts (Dvips)) `VFFONTS`, `TEXFONTS`; suffix .vf.
web
  (WEB input files) `WEBINPUTS`; suffix .web; additional suffix .ch.
web2c files
  (files specific to the web2c implementation) `WEB2C`.

There are two special cases, because the paths and environment variables always depend on the name of the program: the variable name is constructed by converting the program name to upper case, and then appending INPUTS. Assuming the program is called foo, this gives us the following table.

other text files
  (text files used by foo) `FOOINPUTS`.
other binary files
  (binary files used by foo) `FOOINPUTS`.

If an environment variable by these names are set, the corresponding texmf.cnf definition won't be looked at (unless, as usual, the environment variable value has an extra :). See Default expansion.

For the font variables, the intent is that:

- `TEXFONTS` is the default for everything.
- `GLYPHFONTS` is the default for bitmap (or, more precisely, non-metric) files.
- Each font format has a variable of its own.
- Each program has its own font override path as well; e.g., `DVIPSFONTS` for Dvipsk. Again, this is for bitmaps, not metrics.

Next: Glyph lookup, Previous: Supported file formats, Up: TeX support

### 4.2 File lookup

This section describes how Kpathsea searches for most files (bitmap font searches are the exception, as described in the next section).

Here is the search strategy for a file name:

1. If the file format defines default suffixes, and the suffix of name name is not already a known suffix for that format, try the name with each default appended, and use alternative names found in the fontmaps if necessary. We postpone searching the disk as long as possible. Example: given foo.sty, look for foo.sty.tex before foo.sty. This is unfortunate, but allows us to find foo.bar.tex before foo.bar if both exist and we were given foo.bar.
2. Search for name, and if necessary for alternative names found in the fontmaps. Again we avoid searching the disk if possible. Example: given foo, we look for foo.
3. If the file format defines a program to invoke to create missing files, run it (see mktex scripts).

This is implemented in the routine `kpse_find_file` in kpathsea/tex-file.c. You can watch it in action with the debugging options (see Debugging).

Next: Suppressing warnings, Previous: File lookup, Up: TeX support

### 4.3 Glyph lookup

This section describes how Kpathsea searches for a bitmap font in GF or PK format (or either) given a font name (e.g., cmr10) and a resolution (e.g., 600).

Here is an outline of the search strategy (details in the sections below) for a file name at resolution dpi. The search stops at the first successful lookup.

1. Look for an existing file name.dpi format in the specified format(s).
2. If name is an alias for a file f in the fontmap file texfonts.map, look for f.dpi.
3. Run an external program (typically named mktexpk) to generate the font (see mktex scripts)
4. Look for fallback.dpi, where fallback is some last-resort font (typically cmr10).

This is implemented in `kpse_find_glyph_format` in kpathsea/tex-glyph.c.

Next: Fontmap, Up: Glyph lookup

#### 4.3.1 Basic glyph lookup

When Kpathsea looks for a bitmap font name at resolution dpi in a format format, it first checks each directory in the search path for a file name.dpi format; for example, cmr10.600pk. Kpathsea looks for a PK file first, then a GF file.

If that fails, Kpathsea looks for dpi dpi/name.format; for example, dpi600/cmr10.pk. This is how fonts are typically stored on filesystems (such as DOS) that permit only three-character extensions.

If that fails, Kpathsea looks for a font with a close-enough dpi. “Close enough” is defined by the macro `KPSE_BITMAP_TOLERANCE` in kpathsea/tex-glyph.h to be dpi`/ 500 + 1`. This is slightly more than the 0.2% minimum allowed by the DVI standard (CTAN:/dviware/driv-standard/level-0).

Next: Fallback font, Previous: Basic glyph lookup, Up: Glyph lookup

#### 4.3.2 Fontmap

If a bitmap font or metric file is not found with the original name (see the previous section), Kpathsea looks through any fontmap files for an alias for the original font name. These files are named texfonts.map and searched for along the `TEXFONTMAPS` environment/config file variable. All texfonts.map files that are found are read; earlier definitions override later ones.

This feature is intended to help in two respects:

1. An alias name is limited in length only by available memory, not by your filesystem. Therefore, if you want to ask for Times-Roman instead of ptmr, you can (you get ptmr8r).
2. A few fonts have historically had multiple names: specifically, LaTeX's “circle font” has variously been known as circle10, lcircle10, and lcirc10. Aliases can make all the names equivalent, so that it no longer matters what the name of the installed file is; TeX documents will find their favorite name.

The format of fontmap files is straightforward:

- Comments start with % and continue to the end of the line.
- Blank lines are ignored.
- Each nonblank line is broken up into a series of words: a sequence of non-whitespace characters.
- If the first word is include, the second word is used as a filename, and it is searched for and read.
- Otherwise, the first word on each line is the true filename;
- the second word is the alias;
- subsequent words are ignored.

If an alias has an extension, it matches only those files with that extension; otherwise, it matches anything with the same root, regardless of extension. For example, an alias foo.tfm matches only when foo.tfm is being searched for; but an alias foo matches foo.vf, foo.600pk, etc.

As an example, here is an excerpt from the texfonts.map in the Web2c distribution. It makes the circle fonts equivalent and includes automatically generated maps for most PostScript fonts available from various font suppliers.

         circle10        lcircle10
         circle10        lcirc10
         lcircle10       circle10
         lcircle10       lcirc10
         lcirc10         circle10
         lcirc10         lcircle10
         ...
         include adobe.map
         include apple.map
         include bitstrea.map
         ...

Fontmaps are implemented in the file kpathsea/fontmap.c. The Fontname distribution has much more information on font naming (see Introduction (Filenames for TeX fonts)).

Previous: Fontmap, Up: Glyph lookup

#### 4.3.3 Fallback font

If a bitmap font cannot be found or created at the requested size, Kpathsea looks for the font at a set of fallback resolutions. You specify these resolutions as a colon-separated list (like search paths). Kpathsea looks first for a program-specific environment variable (e.g., `DVIPSSIZES` for Dvipsk), then the environment variable `TEXSIZES`, then a default specified at compilation time (the Make variable `default_texsizes`). You can set this list to be empty if you prefer to find fonts at their stated size or not at all.

Finally, if the font cannot be found even at the fallback resolutions, Kpathsea looks for a fallback font, typically cmr10. Programs must enable this feature by assigning to the global variable `kpse_fallback_font` or calling `kpse_init_prog` (see Calling sequence); the default is no fallback font.

Previous: Glyph lookup, Up: TeX support

### 4.4 Suppressing warnings

Kpathsea provides a way to suppress selected usually-harmless warnings; this is useful at large sites where most users are not administrators, and thus the warnings are merely a source of confusion, not a help. To do this, you set the environment variable or configuration file value `TEX_HUSH` to a colon-separated list of values. Here are the possibilities:

all
  Suppress everything possible.
checksum
  Suppress mismatched font checksum warnings.
lostchar
  Suppress warnings when a character is missing from a font that a DVI or VF file tries to typeset.
none
  Don't suppress any warnings.
readable
  Suppress warnings about attempts to access a file whose permissions render it unreadable.
special
  Suppresses warnings about an unimplemented or unparsable \special command.

tex-hush.c defines the function that checks the variable value. Each driver implements its own checks where appropriate.

Next: Index, Previous: TeX support, Up: Top

## 5 Programming

This chapter is for programmers who wish to use Kpathsea. See Introduction, for the conditions under which you may do so.

Next: Calling sequence, Up: Programming

### 5.1 Programming overview

Aside from this manual, your best source of information is the source to the programs I've modified to use Kpathsea (see Introduction). Of those, Dviljk is probably the simplest, and hence a good place to start. Xdvik adds VF support and the complication of X resources. Dvipsk adds the complication of its own config files. Web2c is source code I also maintain, so it uses Kpathsea rather straightforwardly, but is of course complicated by the Web to C translation. Finally, Kpsewhich is a small utility program whose sole purpose is to exercise the main path-searching functionality.

Beyond these examples, the .h files in the Kpathsea source describe the interfaces and functionality (and of course the .c files define the actual routines, which are the ultimate documentation). pathsearch.h declares the basic searching routine. tex-file.h and tex-glyph.h define the interfaces for looking up particular kinds of files. In view of the way the headers depend on each other, it is recommended to use `#include <kpathsea/kpathsea.h>`, which includes every Kpathsea header.

If you want to include only specific headers, you should still consider including kpathsea/config.h before including any other Kpathsea header, as it provides symbols used in the other headers. Note that kpathsea/config.h includes kpathsea/c-auto.h, which is generated by Autoconf.

The library provides no way for an external program to register new file types: tex-file.[ch] must be modified to do this. For example, Kpathsea has support for looking up Dvips config files, even though no program other than Dvips will likely ever want to do so. I felt this was acceptable, since along with new file types should also come new defaults in texmf.cnf (and its descendant paths.h), since it's simplest for users if they can modify one configuration file for all kinds of paths.

Kpathsea does not parse any formats itself; it barely opens any files. Its primary purpose is to return filenames. The GNU font utilities does contain libraries to read TFM, GF, and PK files, as do the programs above, of course.

Next: Program-specific files, Previous: Programming overview, Up: Programming

### 5.2 Calling sequence

The typical way to use Kpathsea in your program goes something like this:

1. Call `kpse_set_program_name` with `argv[0]` as the first argument; the second argument is a string or `NULL`. The second argument is used by Kpathsea as the program name for the `.`program feature of config files (see Config files). If the second argument is `NULL`, the value of the first argument is used. This function must be called before any other use of the Kpathsea library.

   If necessary, `kpse_set_program_name` sets the global variables `program_invocation_name` and `program_invocation_short_name`. These variables are used in the error message macros defined in kpathsea/lib.h. It sets the global variable `kpse_program_name` to the program name it uses. It also initializes debugging options based on the environment variable `KPATHSEA_DEBUG` (if that is set). Finally, it sets the variables `SELFAUTOLOC`, `SELFAUTODIR` and `SELFAUTOPARENT` to the location, parent and grandparent directory of the executable, removing . and .. path elements and resolving symbolic links. These are used in the default configuration file to allow people to invoke TeX from anywhere, specifically from a mounted CD-ROM. (You can use --expand-var=\$SELFAUTOLOC, etc., to see the values finds.)

2. The `kpse_set_progname` is deprecated. A call to `kpse_set_progname` with `argv[0]` is equivalent to a call of `kpse_set_program_name` with first argument `argv[0]` and second argument `NULL`. The function is deprecated because it cannot ensure that the `.`program feature of config files will always work (see Config files).
3. Set debugging options. See Debugging. If your program doesn't have a debugging option already, you can define one and set `kpathsea_debug` to the number that the user supplies (as in Dviljk and Web2c), or you can just omit this altogether (people can always set `KPATHSEA_DEBUG`). If you do have runtime debugging already, you need to merge Kpathsea's options with yours (as in Dvipsk and Xdvik).
4. If your program has its own configuration files that can define search paths, you should assign those paths to the `client_path` member in the appropriate element of the `kpse_format_info` array. (This array is indexed by file type; see tex-file.h.) See resident.c in Dvipsk for an example.
5. Call `kpse_init_prog` (see proginit.c). It's useful for the DVI drivers, at least, but for other programs it may be simpler to extract the parts of it that actually apply. This does not initialize any paths, it just looks for (and sets) certain environment variables and other random information. (A search path is always initialized at the first call to find a file of that type; this eliminates much useless work, e.g., initializing the BibTeX search paths in a DVI driver.)
6. The routine to actually find a file of type format is `kpse_find_`format, defined in tex-file.h. These are macros that expand to a call to kpse_find_file. You can call, say, `kpse_find_tfm` after doing only the first of the initialization steps above—Kpathsea automatically reads the texmf.cnf generic config files, looks for environment variables, and does expansions at the first lookup.
7. To find PK and/or GF bitmap fonts, the routines are `kpse_find_pk`, `kpse_find_gf` and `kpse_find_glyph`, defined in tex-glyph.h. These return a structure in addition to the resultant filename, because fonts can be found in so many ways. See the documentation in the source.
8. To actually open a file, not just return a filename, call `kpse_open_file`. This function takes the name to look up and a Kpathsea file format as arguments, and returns the usual `FILE *`. It always assumes the file must exist, and thus will search the disk if necessary (unless the search path specified !!, etc.). In other words, if you are looking up a VF or some other file that need not exist, don't use this.

Kpathsea also provides many utility routines. Some are generic: hash tables, memory allocation, string concatenation and copying, string lists, reading input lines of arbitrary length, etc. Others are filename-related: default path, tilde, and variable expansion, `stat` calls, etc. (Perhaps someday I'll move the former to a separate library.)

The c-*.h header files can also help your program adapt to many different systems. You will almost certainly want to use Autoconf for configuring your software if you use Kpathsea; I strongly recommend using Autoconf regardless. It is available from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/.

Next: Programming with config files, Previous: Calling sequence, Up: Programming

### 5.3 Program-specific files

Many programs will need to find some configuration files. Kpathsea contains some support to make it easy to place them in their own directories. The Standard TeX directory structure (see Introduction (A Directory Structure for TeX files)), specifies that such files should go into a subdirectory named after the program, like texmf/ttf2pk.

Two special formats, kpse_program_text_format and kpse_program_binary_format exist, which use `.:$TEXMF/`program`//` as their compiled-in search path. To override this default, you can use the variable PROGRAM `INPUTS` in the environment and/or texmf.cnf. That is to say, the name of the variable is constructed by converting the name of the program to upper case, and appending `INPUTS`.

The only difference between these two formats is whether `kpse_open_file` will open the files it finds in text or binary mode.

Previous: Program-specific files, Up: Programming

### 5.4 Programming with config files

You can (and probably should) use the same `texmf.cnf` configuration file that Kpathsea uses for your program. This helps installers by keeping all configuration in one place.

To retrieve a value var from config files, the best way is to call `kpse_var_value` on the string var. This will look first for an environment variable var, then a config file value. The result will be the value found or NULL. This function is declared in kpathsea/variable.h. For an example, see the `shell_escape` code in web2c/lib/texmfmp.c.

The routine to do variable expansion in the context of a search path (as opposed to simply retrieving a value) is `kpse_var_expand`, also declared in kpathsea/variable.h. It's generally only necessary to set the search path structure components as explained in the previous section, rather than using this yourself.

If for some reason you want to retrieve a value only from a config file, not automatically looking for a corresponding environment variable, call `kpse_cnf_get` (declared in kpathsea/cnf.h) with the string var.

No initialization calls are needed.

Previous: Programming, Up: Top

## Index

- `!!` in path specifications: ls-R
- `$` expansion: Variable expansion
- `--color=tty`: ls-R
- `--debug=`num: Auxiliary tasks
- `--disable-static`: configure options
- `--dpi=`num: Path searching options
- `--enable` options: configure options
- `--enable-maintainer-mode`: configure options
- `--enable-shared`: configure options
- `--enable-shared`: Shared library
- `--engine=`name: Path searching options
- `--expand-braces=`string: Auxiliary tasks
- `--expand-path=`string: Auxiliary tasks
- `--expand-var=`string: Auxiliary tasks
- `--format=`name: Path searching options
- `--help`: Standard options
- `--interactive`: Path searching options
- `--mode=`string: Path searching options
- `--must-exist`: Path searching options
- `--path=`string: Path searching options
- `--progname=`name: Path searching options
- `--show-path=`name: Auxiliary tasks
- `--srcdir`, for building multiple architectures: configure scenarios
- `--var-value=`variable: Auxiliary tasks
- `--version`: Standard options
- `--with` options: configure options
- `--with-mktextex-default`: mktex configuration
- `--without-mktexmf-default`: mktex configuration
- `--without-mktexpk-default`: mktex configuration
- `--without-mktextfm-default`: mktex configuration
- `-1` debugging value: Debugging
- `-A` option to `ls`: ls-R
- `-Bdynamic`: ShellWidgetClass
- `-Bstatic`: ShellWidgetClass
- `-D` num: Path searching options
- `-dynamic`: ShellWidgetClass
- `-g`, compiling without: configure scenarios
- `-L` option to `ls`: ls-R
- `-mktex=`filetype: Path searching options
- `-no-mktex=`filetype: Path searching options
- `-O`, compiling with: configure scenarios
- `-static`: ShellWidgetClass
- `.` directories, ignored: ls-R
- `.` files: ls-R
- `.2602gf`: Unable to generate fonts
- `.afm`: Supported file formats
- `.base`: Supported file formats
- `.bib`: Supported file formats
- `.bst`: Supported file formats
- `.cmap`: Supported file formats
- `.cnf`: Supported file formats
- `.enc`: Supported file formats
- `.eps`: Supported file formats
- `.epsi`: Supported file formats
- `.fmt`: Supported file formats
- `.ist`: Supported file formats
- `.lig`: Supported file formats
- `.map`: Supported file formats
- `.mem`: Supported file formats
- `.mf`: Supported file formats
- `.mft`: Supported file formats
- `.mp`: Supported file formats
- `.ocp`: Supported file formats
- `.ofm`: Supported file formats
- `.opl`: Supported file formats
- `.otp`: Supported file formats
- `.ovf`: Supported file formats
- `.ovp`: Supported file formats
- `.pfa`: Supported file formats
- `.pfb`: Supported file formats
- `.pk`: Supported file formats
- `.pool`: Supported file formats
- `.pro`: Supported file formats
- `.rhosts`, writable by TeX: Security
- `.sfd`: Supported file formats
- `.tex`: Supported file formats
- `.tex` file, included in ls-R: ls-R
- `.tfm`: Supported file formats
- `.ttc`: Supported file formats
- `.ttf`: Supported file formats
- `.vf`: Supported file formats
- `.w`: Supported file formats
- `.web`: Supported file formats
- `/` may not be /: Searching overview
- `/`, trailing in home directory: Tilde expansion
- `//`: Subdirectory expansion
- `/afs/...` , installing into: Installing files
- `/etc/profile`: Unable to find files
- `/etc/profile` and aliases: ls-R
- `/var/tmp/texfonts`: mktex configuration
- `2602gf`: Unable to generate fonts
- 8.3 filenames, using: mktex configuration
- `:` may not be :: Searching overview
- `::` expansion: Default expansion
- @var@ substitutions: Running configure
- `\`, line continuation in texmf.cnf: Config files
- `\openin`: Searching overview
- `\special`, suppressing warnings about: Suppressing warnings
- absolute filenames: Searching overview
- `ac_include`, Autoconf extension: Running configure
- access warnings: Searching overview
- Acorn TeX implementations: Other TeX packages
- `AFMFONTS`: Supported file formats
- AFS: Installing files
- AIX 4.1 `configure` error: Empty Makefiles
- AIX shells and `configure`: configure shells
- aliases for fonts: Fontmap
- aliases, for filenames: Filename aliases
- `all`: Suppressing warnings
- alphabetical order, not: Subdirectory expansion
- Amiga support: Custom installation
- Amiga TeX implementations: Other TeX packages
- Andrew File System, installing with: Installing files
- announcement mailing list: Mailing lists
- ANSI C: TeX or Metafont failing
- append-only directories and `mktexpk`: Security
- `appendonlydir`: mktex configuration
- architecture-(in)dependent files, installing only: Installing files
- architectures, compiling multiple: configure scenarios
- arguments to mktex: mktex script arguments
- `argv[0]`: Calling sequence
- `ash`, losing with `configure`: configure shells
- `autoconf`, recommended: Calling sequence
- automounter, and configuration: configure scenarios
- automounter, and ls-R: ls-R
- auxiliary tasks: Auxiliary tasks
- Babel: Kpathsea application distributions
- Babel: Running make
- Bach, Johann Sebastian: Default expansion
- backbone of CTAN: Electronic distribution
- backslash-newline: Config files
- `bash`, recommended for running `configure`: configure shells
- basic glyph lookup: Basic glyph lookup
- Berry, Karl: History
- `BIBINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- binary mode, for file transfers: Electronic distribution
- blank lines, in texmf.cnf: Config files
- brace expansion: Brace expansion
- BSD universe: Running make
- `bsh`, ok with `configure`: configure shells
- `BSTINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- bug address: Reporting bugs
- bug checklist: Bug checklist
- bug mailing list: Mailing lists
- bugs, reporting: Reporting bugs
- `c-*.h`: Calling sequence
- `c-auto.h`: Programming overview
- `c-auto.in`: Running configure
- cache of fonts, local: Security
- calling sequence: Calling sequence
- `CC`: configure environment
- `cc` warnings: Pointer combination warnings
- `cc`, compiling with: configure environment
- CD-ROM distributions: CD-ROM distribution
- `CFLAGS`: configure environment
- `ChangeLog` entry: Bug checklist
- checklist for bug reports: Bug checklist
- `checksum`: Suppressing warnings
- circle fonts: Fontmap
- `clean` Make target: Cleaning up
- `client_path` in `kpse_format_info`: Calling sequence
- `CMAPFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `cmr10`, as fallback font: Fallback font
- `cmr10.vf`: Searching overview
- `cnf.c`: Config files
- `cnf.h`: Programming with config files
- code sharing: Shared library
- color printers, configuring: Simple installation
- comments, in fontmap files: Fontmap
- comments, in texmf.cnf: Config files
- comments, making: Introduction
- common features in glyph lookup: Basic glyph lookup
- common problems: Common problems
- `comp.sys.sun.admin` FAQ: ShellWidgetClass
- `comp.text.tex`: Mailing lists
- compilation: Installation
- compilation value, source for path: Path sources
- compiler bugs: TeX or Metafont failing
- compiler bugs, finding: TeX or Metafont failing
- compiler options, additional: Running make
- compiler options, specifying: configure environment
- compiler, changing: Running make
- compiling on HP-UX: TeX or Metafont failing
- conditions for use: Introduction
- config files: Config files
- config files, for Kpathsea-using programs: Calling sequence
- config files, programming with: Programming with config files
- `config.h`: Programming overview
- `config.log`: Bug checklist
- `config.ps`, search path for: Supported file formats
- `config.status`: Bug checklist
- configuration: Installation
- configuration bugs: Bug checklist
- configuration compiler options: configure environment
- configuration file, source for path: Path sources
- configuration files as shell scripts.: Config files
- configuration of mktex scripts: mktex configuration
- configuration of optional features: configure options
- `configure` error from `sed`: Empty Makefiles
- `configure` options: configure options
- `configure` options for mktex scripts: mktex configuration
- `configure`, running: Running configure
- context diff: Bug checklist
- continuation character: Config files
- core dumps, reporting: Bug checklist
- `CPPFLAGS`: configure environment
- crashes, reporting: Bug checklist
- CTAN, defined: Electronic distribution
- `CTAN.sites`: Electronic distribution
- custom installation: Custom installation
- `CWEBINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- database search: Searching overview
- database, for filenames: Filename database
- database, format of: Database format
- `debug.h`: Debugging
- debugger: Bug checklist
- debugging: Debugging
- debugging options, in Kpathsea-using program: Calling sequence
- debugging output: Debugging
- debugging with -g, disabling: configure scenarios
- DEC shells and `configure`: configure shells
- default expansion: Default expansion
- default path features: Default path features
- default paths, changing: Default path generation
- default paths, how they're made: Default path generation
- `default_texsizes`: Fallback font
- `DEFS`: configure environment
- `depot`: configure scenarios
- directories, changing default installation: Default path generation
- directories, making append-only: mktex configuration
- directory permissions: Security
- directory structure, for TeX files: TeX directory structure
- disabling mktex scripts: mktex configuration
- disk search: Searching overview
- disk searching, avoiding: ls-R
- disk space, needed: Disk space
- disk usage, reducing: Logging
- `distclean` Make target: Cleaning up
- distributions, compiling simultaneously: Kpathsea application distributions
- distributions, not compiling: Kpathsea application distributions
- distributions, on CD-ROM: CD-ROM distribution
- distributions, via ftp: Electronic distribution
- `dlclose`: dlopen
- `dlopen`: dlopen
- `dlsym`: dlopen
- `dlsym.c`: dlopen
- `doc files`: Supported file formats
- DOS compatible names: mktex configuration
- DOS support: Custom installation
- DOS TeX implementations: Other TeX packages
- `dosnames`: mktex configuration
- dot files: ls-R
- doubled colons: Default expansion
- `dpi` nnn `directories`: mktex configuration
- DVI drivers: Kpathsea application distributions
- `DVILJMAKEPK`: mktex script names
- `DVILJSIZES`: Fallback font
- `DVIPSFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `DVIPSHEADERS`: Supported file formats
- `DVIPSMAKEPK`: mktex script names
- `DVIPSSIZES`: Fallback font
- dynamic creation of files: mktex scripts
- dynamic linking problems with OpenWin libraries: ShellWidgetClass
- EC fonts, and dynamic source creation: mktex scripts
- `elt-dirs.c`: Subdirectory expansion
- email CTAN access: Electronic distribution
- enabling mktex scripts: mktex configuration
- `ENCFONTS`: Supported file formats
- engine name: Path searching options
- environment variable, source for path: Path sources
- environment variables for TeX: Supported file formats
- environment variables in paths: Variable expansion
- environment variables, old: Unable to find files
- epoch, seconds since: Logging
- error message macros: Calling sequence
- excessive startup time: Slow path searching
- `expand.c`: Brace expansion
- expanding symlinks: Calling sequence
- expansion, default: Default expansion
- expansion, path element: Searching overview
- expansion, search path: Path expansion
- expansion, subdirectory: Subdirectory expansion
- expansion, tilde: Tilde expansion
- expansion, variable: Variable expansion
- explicitly relative filenames: Searching overview
- externally-built filename database: Filename database
- extra colons: Default expansion
- `extraclean` Make target: Cleaning up
- failed `mktex...` script invocation: mktex script names
- fallback font: Fallback font
- fallback resolutions: Fallback font
- fallback resolutions, overriding: Running make
- FAQ, `comp.sys.sun.admin`: ShellWidgetClass
- FAQ, Kpathsea: Common problems
- Farwell, Matthew: Subdirectory expansion
- features, of default paths: Default path features
- file formats, supported: Supported file formats
- file lookup: File lookup
- file permissions: Security
- file types, registering new: Programming overview
- filename aliases: Filename aliases
- filename database: Filename database
- filename database generation: Filename database generation
- filenames, absolute or explicitly relative: Searching overview
- files, unable to find: Unable to find files
- filesystem search: Searching overview
- floating directories: Searching overview
- font alias files: Fontmap
- font generation failures: Unable to generate fonts
- font of last resort: Fallback font
- font set, infinite: mktex scripts
- fontmap files: Fontmap
- `fontmaps`: mktex configuration
- fontname: mktex configuration
- fontnames, arbitrary length: Fontmap
- fonts, being created: Simple installation
- `FOOINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- `fopen`, redefined: Debugging
- format of external database: Database format
- Free Software Foundation: CD-ROM distribution
- FreeBSD `configure` error: Empty Makefiles
- FreeBSD shells and `configure`: configure shells
- FSF Source Code CD-ROM: CD-ROM distribution
- ftp retrieval: Electronic distribution
- `ftp.tug.org`: unixtex.ftp
- fundamental purpose of Kpathsea: Introduction
- `gcc`, compiling with: configure environment
- `gdb`, recommended: Bug checklist
- generation of filename database: Filename database generation
- `get_applicationShellWidgetClass`: ShellWidgetClass
- `get_wmShellWidgetClass`: ShellWidgetClass
- `gf`: Supported file formats
- `GFFONTS`: Supported file formats
- globally writable directories: Security
- glyph lookup: Glyph lookup
- glyph lookup bitmap tolerance: Basic glyph lookup
- `GLYPHFONTS`: Supported file formats
- GNU C compiler bugs: TeX or Metafont failing
- GNU General Public License: Introduction
- group-writable directories: Security
- `GSFTOPK_DEBUG` (128): Debugging
- hash table buckets, printing: Debugging
- hash table routines: Calling sequence
- `hash_summary_only` variable for debugging: Debugging
- help, mailing list for general TeX: Mailing lists
- `HIER`: Default path features
- history of Kpathsea: History
- home directories in paths: Tilde expansion
- `HOME`, as ~ expansion: Tilde expansion
- HP-UX, compiling on: TeX or Metafont failing
- identifiers, characters valid in: Config files
- illegal pointer combination warnings: Pointer combination warnings
- `include` fontmap directive: Fontmap
- `INDEXSTYLE`: Supported file formats
- `info-tex@shsu.edu`: Mailing lists
- input lines, reading: Calling sequence
- `install-data` Make target: Installing files
- `install-exec` Make target: Installing files
- installation: Installation
- installation testing: Installation testing
- installation, architecture-(in)dependent files only: Installing files
- installation, changing default directories: Default path generation
- installation, customized: Custom installation
- installation, getting executables instead of: Simple installation
- installation, simple: Simple installation
- installing files: Installing files
- interactive query: Path searching options
- interface, not frozen: Introduction
- introduction: Introduction
- kdebug:: Debugging
- `kdefault.c`: Default expansion
- Knuth, Donald E.: History
- Knuth, Donald E., archive of programs by: Other TeX packages
- Knuth, Donald E., original author: Electronic distribution
- Korn shell, losing with `configure`: configure shells
- Kpathsea config file, source for path: Path sources
- Kpathsea version number: Kpathsea application distributions
- `kpathsea.h`: Programming overview
- `kpathsea/HIER`: Default path features
- `kpathsea/README.CONFIGURE`: Running configure
- `KPATHSEA_DEBUG`: Debugging
- `kpathsea_debug`: Debugging
- `KPATHSEA_DEBUG`: Calling sequence
- `kpathsea_debug`: Debugging
- `kpathsea_debug` variable: Calling sequence
- `KPSE_BITMAP_TOLERANCE`: Basic glyph lookup
- `kpse_cnf_get`: Programming with config files
- `KPSE_DEBUG_EXPAND` (16): Debugging
- `KPSE_DEBUG_FOPEN` (4): Debugging
- `KPSE_DEBUG_HASH` (2): Debugging
- `KPSE_DEBUG_PATHS` (8): Debugging
- `KPSE_DEBUG_SEARCH` (32): Debugging
- `KPSE_DEBUG_STAT` (1): Debugging
- `KPSE_DEBUG_VARS` (64): Debugging
- `KPSE_DOT` expansion: KPSE_DOT expansion
- `kpse_fallback_font`: Fallback font
- `kpse_find_*`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_find_file`: File lookup
- `kpse_find_file`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_find_glyph_format`: Glyph lookup
- `kpse_format_info`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_format_info_type`: Debugging
- `kpse_init_prog`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_init_prog`, and `MAKETEX_MODE`: Default path features
- `kpse_make_specs`: mktex script names
- `kpse_open_file`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_program_name`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_set_progname`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_set_program_name`: Calling sequence
- `kpse_var_value`: Programming with config files
- `kpsewhich`: Invoking kpsewhich
- Kpsewhich, and debugging: Debugging
- `ksh`, losing with `configure`: configure shells
- `labrea.stanford.edu`: Other TeX packages
- LaserJet drive: Kpathsea application distributions
- last-resort font: Fallback font
- LaTeX help mailing list: Mailing lists
- `lcircle10`: Fontmap
- `LDFLAGS`: configure environment
- leading colons: Default expansion
- leaf directories wrongly guessed: Unable to find files
- leaf directory trick: Subdirectory expansion
- `libdl.a`: dlopen
- libraries, changing: Running make
- libraries, specifying additional: configure environment
- `LIBS`: configure environment
- `libucb`, avoiding: Running make
- license for using the library: Introduction
- `LIGFONTS`: Supported file formats
- lines, reading arbitrary-length: Calling sequence
- Linux File System Standard: mktex configuration
- Linux shells and `configure`: configure shells
- Linux, using Web2c: CD-ROM distribution
- `lndir` for building symlink trees: configure scenarios
- loader options: configure environment
- loader options, final: Running make
- loader options, initial: Running make
- local cache of fonts: Security
- log file: Logging
- logging successful searches: Logging
- `lost+found` directory: Searching overview
- `lostchar`: Suppressing warnings
- `ls-R`: Supported file formats
- `ls-R` and AFS: Installing files
- `ls-R` database file: ls-R
- `ls-R`, simplest build: ls-R
- Mach10 `configure` error: Empty Makefiles
- Macintosh TeX implementations: Other TeX packages
- MacKenzie, David: Subdirectory expansion
- MacKenzie, David: History
- magic characters: Searching overview
- mailing lists: Mailing lists
- `maintainer-clean` Make target: Cleaning up
- Make arguments, additional: Running make
- `make`, running: Running make
- `Makefile.in`: Running configure
- Makefiles, empty: Empty Makefiles
- `MAKETEX_DEBUG` (512): Debugging
- `MAKETEX_FINE_DEBUG` (1024): Debugging
- `MAKETEX_MODE`: Default path features
- memory allocation routines: Calling sequence
- metafont driver files: mktex configuration
- Metafont failures: TeX or Metafont failing
- Metafont installation: Unable to generate fonts
- Metafont making too-large fonts: Unable to generate fonts
- Metafont using the wrong resolution: Unable to generate fonts
- `MFBASES`: Supported file formats
- `MFINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- `MFPOOL`: Supported file formats
- `MFTINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- mirrors, FTP: Electronic distribution
- `MISCFONTS`: Supported file formats
- mismatched checksum warnings: Suppressing warnings
- `missfont.log`: mktex script names
- `MISSFONT_LOG`: mktex script names
- missing character warnings: Suppressing warnings
- mktex script configuration: mktex configuration
- mktex script names: mktex script names
- mktex scripts: mktex scripts
- `mktex.cnf`: mktex configuration
- `mktex.opt`: mktex configuration
- `mktexdir`: mktex configuration
- `mktexmf`: mktex script names
- `mktexpk`: mktex script names
- `mktexpk` , initial runs: Simple installation
- `mktextex`: mktex script names
- `mktextfm`: mktex script names
- mode directory, omitting: mktex configuration
- Morgan, Tim: History
- `mostlyclean` Make target: Cleaning up
- `MPINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- `MPMEMS`: Supported file formats
- `MPPOOL`: Supported file formats
- `MPSUPPORT`: Supported file formats
- `MT_FEATURES`: mktex configuration
- multiple architectures, compiling on: configure scenarios
- multiple architectures, directories for: configure scenarios
- multiple architectures, installing on: Installing files
- multiple TeX hierarchies: Brace expansion
- must exist: Searching overview
- names for mktex scripts: mktex script names
- NetBSD `configure` error: Empty Makefiles
- NetBSD shells and `configure`: configure shells
- Neumann, Gustaf: History
- newsgroup for TeX: Mailing lists
- NeXT `sed` error: Empty Makefiles
- NeXT, lacking X11: Kpathsea application distributions
- NFS and ls-R: ls-R
- NFS CTAN access: Electronic distribution
- `nomfdrivers`: mktex configuration
- `nomode`: mktex configuration
- non-English typesetting: Kpathsea application distributions
- non-Unix operating systems: Custom installation
- `none`: Suppressing warnings
- null pointers, dereferencing: Bug checklist
- numeric debugging values: Debugging
- obtaining TeX: unixtex.ftp
- obtaining Web2c by ftp: Electronic distribution
- obtaining Web2c on CD-ROM: CD-ROM distribution
- `OCPINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- `OFMFONTS`: Supported file formats
- online Metafont display, spurious: Unable to generate fonts
- `OPENTYPEFONTS`: Supported file formats
- OpenWin libraries, dynamic linking problems: ShellWidgetClass
- optimization caveat: TeX or Metafont failing
- optimization, enabling: configure scenarios
- options for debugging: Debugging
- options to `configure`: configure options
- OS/2 support: Custom installation
- other TeX distributions: Other TeX packages
- `OTPINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- overview of path searching: Searching overview
- overview of programming with Kpathsea: Programming overview
- `OVFFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `OVPFONTS`: Supported file formats
- patches, Sun OpenWin: ShellWidgetClass
- path expansion: Path expansion
- path searching: Path searching
- path searching options: Path searching options
- path searching, overview: Searching overview
- path searching, standalone: Invoking kpsewhich
- path sources: Path sources
- paths, changing default: Default path generation
- paths, changing default: Changing search paths
- paths, device name included in: Default path features
- `paths.h`: Default path generation
- `paths.h`, creating: Running make
- `pathsearch.h`: Programming overview
- `pc` Pascal compiler: History
- PCL driver: Kpathsea application distributions
- PDF generation: Kpathsea application distributions
- `PDFTEXCONFIG`: Supported file formats
- permission denied: Searching overview
- permissions, directory: Security
- permissions, file: Security
- `PKFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `plain.base`: Unable to generate fonts
- pointer combination warnings: Pointer combination warnings
- PostScript driver: Kpathsea application distributions
- PostScript fonts, additional: Simple installation
- precompiled executables, instead of installation: Simple installation
- precompiled Unix binaries: Other TeX packages
- preprocessor options: configure environment
- preprocessor options, additional: Running make
- printer configuration files: Simple installation
- privacy, semblance of: Logging
- problems, common: Common problems
- `proginit.c`: Default path features
- `proginit.h`: Calling sequence
- program-varying paths: Supported file formats
- `program_invocation_name`: Calling sequence
- `program_invocation_short_name`: Calling sequence
- programming overview: Programming overview
- programming with config files: Programming with config files
- programming with Kpathsea: Calling sequence
- programs using the library: Introduction
- proof mode: Unable to generate fonts
- `PSHEADERS`: Supported file formats
- `pxp` Pascal preprocessor: History
- quoting variable values: Variable expansion
- `readable`: Suppressing warnings
- reading arbitrary-length lines: Calling sequence
- `README.CONFIGURE`: Running configure
- `README.mirrors`: Electronic distribution
- recording successful searches: Logging
- relative filenames: Searching overview
- relative filenames in ls-R: Installing files
- reporting bugs: Reporting bugs
- `resident.c`: Calling sequence
- resolution, setting: Path searching options
- resolution, wrong: Unable to generate fonts
- resolutions, last-resort: Fallback font
- retrieving TeX: unixtex.ftp
- right-hand side of variable assignments: Config files
- Rokicki, Tom: History
- `root` user: Tilde expansion
- runtime configuration files: Config files
- runtime debugging: Debugging
- Sauter fonts, and dynamic source creation: mktex scripts
- scripts for file creation: mktex scripts
- search path, defined: Searching overview
- search paths, changing default: Changing search paths
- searching for files: File lookup
- searching for glyphs: Glyph lookup
- searching overview: Searching overview
- searching the database: Searching overview
- searching the disk: Searching overview
- security considerations: Security
- `sed` error from `configure`: Empty Makefiles
- SELFAUTODIR: Calling sequence
- SELFAUTOLOC: Calling sequence
- SELFAUTOPARENT: Calling sequence
- sending patches: Bug checklist
- setgid scripts: Security
- `SFDFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `sh5`, ok with `configure`: configure shells
- shar, recommended: Bug checklist
- shared library, making: Shared library
- shell scripts as configuration files: Config files
- shell variables: Variable expansion
- `shell_escape`, example for code: Programming with config files
- shells and `configure`: configure shells
- simple installation: Simple installation
- site overrides for `mktex...`: mktex configuration
- size of distribution archives: Disk space
- skeleton TeX directory: TeX directory structure
- slow startup time: Slow path searching
- Solaris BSD compatibility, not: Running make
- `source files`: Supported file formats
- sources for search paths: Path sources
- `special`: Suppressing warnings
- `st_nlink`: Subdirectory expansion
- stack trace: Bug checklist
- standalone path searching: Invoking kpsewhich
- standard error and debugging output: Debugging
- standard options: Standard options
- startup time, excessive: Slow path searching
- static linking: ShellWidgetClass
- static linking and `dlsym`: dlopen
- string routines: Calling sequence
- `strip`: mktex configuration
- `stripsupplier`: mktex configuration
- `striptypeface`: mktex configuration
- subdirectory searching: Subdirectory expansion
- suggestions, making: Introduction
- Sun 2: History
- Sun OpenWin patches: ShellWidgetClass
- supplier directory, omitting: mktex configuration
- supported file formats: Supported file formats
- suppressing warnings: Suppressing warnings
- symbolic link trees, for multiple architectures: configure scenarios
- symbolic links not found: Unable to find files
- symbolic links, and ls-R: ls-R
- symlinks, resolving: Calling sequence
- system C compiler bugs: TeX or Metafont failing
- system dependencies: Running configure
- system V universe: Running make
- `T1FONTS`: Supported file formats
- `T1INPUTS`: Supported file formats
- `T42FONTS`: Supported file formats
- TDS: TeX directory structure
- testing, post-installation: Installation testing
- tests, simple: Simple installation
- teTeX: Other TeX packages
- TeX directory structure: TeX directory structure
- TeX distributions besides Web2c: Other TeX packages
- TeX environment variables: Supported file formats
- TeX failures: TeX or Metafont failing
- TeX file lookup: File lookup
- TeX glyph lookup: Glyph lookup
- TeX help mailing list: Mailing lists
- TeX hierarchy, one: configure scenarios
- TeX Live CD-ROM: CD-ROM distribution
- TeX support: TeX support
- TeX Users Group: Introduction
- `tex-archive@math.utah.edu`: Mailing lists
- `tex-file.c`: File lookup
- `tex-file.h`: Programming overview
- `tex-glyph.c`: Glyph lookup
- `tex-glyph.h`: Programming overview
- `tex-k-request@mail.tug.org`: Mailing lists
- `tex-k@mail.tug.org` (bug address): Reporting bugs
- `tex-make.c`: mktex script names
- `TEX_HUSH`: Suppressing warnings
- `TEX_HUSH`: Searching overview
- `TEXBIB`: Supported file formats
- `TEXCONFIG`: Supported file formats
- `TEXDOCS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXFONTMAPS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `texfonts.map`: Fontmap
- `TEXFORMATS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXINDEXSTYLE`: Supported file formats
- `TEXINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXMF`: TeX directory structure
- `texmf.cnf`, and variable expansion: Variable expansion
- `texmf.cnf`, creating: Running make
- `texmf.cnf`, definition for: Config files
- `texmf.cnf`, generated: Default path generation
- `texmf.cnf`, source for path: Path sources
- `texmf.in`: Default path generation
- `texmf.in`, editing: Changing search paths
- `texmf.sed`: Default path generation
- `TEXMFCNF`: Supported file formats
- `TEXMFCNF`: Config files
- `TEXMFDBS`: ls-R
- `TEXMFDBS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXMFINI`: Supported file formats
- `TEXMFLOG`: Logging
- `TEXMFOUTPUT`: mktex script names
- `TEXMFSCRIPTS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXPICTS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXPKS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXPOOL`: Supported file formats
- `TEXPSHEADERS`: Supported file formats
- `TEXSIZES`: Fallback font
- `TEXSOURCES`: Supported file formats
- `TFMFONTS`: Supported file formats
- tilde expansion: Tilde expansion
- `tilde.c`: Tilde expansion
- `time` system call: Logging
- tolerance for glyph lookup: Basic glyph lookup
- total disk space: Disk space
- trailing / in home directory: Tilde expansion
- trailing colons: Default expansion
- `TRFONTS`: Supported file formats
- trick for detecting leaf directories: Subdirectory expansion
- trojan horse attack: Security
- `TTFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `tug.org`: unixtex.ftp
- `tug@tug.org`: Introduction
- typeface directory, omitting: mktex configuration
- `ucbinclude`, avoiding: Running make
- Ultrix shells and `configure`: configure shells
- unable to find files: Unable to find files
- unable to generate fonts: Unable to generate fonts
- `uname`: Bug checklist
- universe, BSD vs. system V: Running make
- `UNIX_ST_LINK`: Subdirectory expansion
- `unixtex.ftp`: unixtex.ftp
- unknown special warnings: Suppressing warnings
- unreadable file warnings: Suppressing warnings
- unreadable files: Searching overview
- unusable ls-R warning: ls-R
- usage patterns, finding: Logging
- `USE_VARTEXFONTS`: mktex configuration
- Usenet TeX newsgroup: Mailing lists
- `varfonts`: mktex configuration
- variable expansion: Variable expansion
- `variable.c`: Variable expansion
- `variable.h`: Programming with config files
- `VARTEXFONTS`: mktex configuration
- VAX 11/750: History
- version number, of Kpathsea: Kpathsea application distributions
- version numbers, determining: Bug checklist
- VF files, not found: Searching overview
- `VFFONTS`: Supported file formats
- VMS support: Custom installation
- VMS TeX implementations: Other TeX packages
- Vojta, Paul: History
- Walsh, Norman: History
- warning about unusable ls-R: ls-R
- warnings, file access: Searching overview
- warnings, pointer combinations: Pointer combination warnings
- warnings, suppressing: Suppressing warnings
- `wcstombs`: dlopen
- `WEB2C`: Supported file formats
- Weber, Olaf: History
- `WEBINPUTS`: Supported file formats
- whitespace, in fontmap files: Fontmap
- whitespace, not ignored on continuation lines: Config files
- Windows TeX implementations: Other TeX packages
- World Wide Web CTAN access: Electronic distribution
- `www.tug.org`: unixtex.ftp
- X11 previewer: Kpathsea application distributions
- X11, lacking on NeXT: Kpathsea application distributions
- `XCFLAGS`: Running make
- `XCPPFLAGS`: Running make
- `XDEFS`: Running make
- `XDVIFONTS`: Supported file formats
- `XDVIMAKEPK`: mktex script names
- `XDVISIZES`: Fallback font
- `XLDFLAGS`: Running make
- `XLOADLIBES`: Running make
- `XMAKEARGS`: Running make
- `Xmu` library problems: ShellWidgetClass
- `XtStrings`: XtStrings
- zuhn, david: History
- `{` expansion: Brace expansion
- `~` expansion: Tilde expansion

## Table of Contents

- Kpathsea library
- 1 Introduction
  - 1.1 History
- 2 Installation
  - 2.1 Simple installation
  - 2.2 Custom installation
    - 2.2.1 Disk space
    - 2.2.2 Kpathsea application distributions
    - 2.2.3 Changing search paths
      - 2.2.3.1 Default path features
      - 2.2.3.2 Default path generation
    - 2.2.4 Running `configure`
      - 2.2.4.1 `configure` shells
      - 2.2.4.2 `configure` options
      - 2.2.4.3 `configure` environment
      - 2.2.4.4 `configure` scenarios
      - 2.2.4.5 Shared library
    - 2.2.5 Running `make`
    - 2.2.6 Installing files
    - 2.2.7 Cleaning up
    - 2.2.8 Filename database generation
    - 2.2.9 mktex scripts
      - 2.2.9.1 mktex configuration
      - 2.2.9.2 mktex script names
      - 2.2.9.3 mktex script arguments
    - 2.2.10 Installation testing
  - 2.3 Security
  - 2.4 TeX directory structure
  - 2.5 unixtex.ftp: Obtaining TeX
    - 2.5.1 Electronic distribution
    - 2.5.2 CD-ROM distribution
    - 2.5.3 Other TeX packages
  - 2.6 Reporting bugs
    - 2.6.1 Bug checklist
    - 2.6.2 Mailing lists
    - 2.6.3 Debugging
    - 2.6.4 Logging
    - 2.6.5 Common problems
      - 2.6.5.1 Unable to find files
      - 2.6.5.2 Slow path searching
      - 2.6.5.3 Unable to generate fonts
      - 2.6.5.4 TeX or Metafont failing
      - 2.6.5.5 Empty Makefiles
      - 2.6.5.6 `XtStrings`
      - 2.6.5.7 `dlopen`
      - 2.6.5.8 `ShellWidgetClass`
      - 2.6.5.9 Pointer combination warnings
- 3 Path searching
  - 3.1 Searching overview
  - 3.2 Path sources
    - 3.2.1 Config files
  - 3.3 Path expansion
    - 3.3.1 Default expansion
    - 3.3.2 Variable expansion
    - 3.3.3 Tilde expansion
    - 3.3.4 Brace expansion
    - 3.3.5 `KPSE_DOT` expansion
    - 3.3.6 Subdirectory expansion
  - 3.4 Filename database (`ls-R`)
    - 3.4.1 ls-R
    - 3.4.2 Filename aliases
    - 3.4.3 Database format
  - 3.5 `kpsewhich`: Standalone path searching
    - 3.5.1 Path searching options
    - 3.5.2 Auxiliary tasks
    - 3.5.3 Standard options
- 4 TeX support
  - 4.1 Supported file formats
  - 4.2 File lookup
  - 4.3 Glyph lookup
    - 4.3.1 Basic glyph lookup
    - 4.3.2 Fontmap
    - 4.3.3 Fallback font
  - 4.4 Suppressing warnings
- 5 Programming
  - 5.1 Programming overview
  - 5.2 Calling sequence
  - 5.3 Program-specific files
  - 5.4 Programming with config files
- Index