[metapost] file naming question.

walt burkhard burkhard at cs.ucsd.edu
Thu Jan 21 03:18:59 CET 2010


Hello Dan,

Thanks for the note.

yes, your suggestion is operational.  e.g.

	mpost --jobname=data data.out  creates  data.0 data.1 data.2 ...

Walt Burkhard



Dan Luecking wrote:
> At 08:46 AM 1/20/2010, you wrote:
> [Oops, forgot to hit reply-all. Here's what I wrote to Taco:]
>> Hi,
>>
>> Walt Burkhard wrote:
>>> I have used MetaPost for many years.   I notice a change in how .mp 
>>> files are created.
>>> old version:      mpost data.out   creates   data.0  data.1 data.2 
>>> etc...
>>> new version:    mpost data.out    creates  data.out.0 data.out.1 
>>> data.out.2 etc ...
>>
>>> Is there any outputtemplate to continue the "old" naming convention?
>>
>> Unless you count
>>
>>   outputtemplate := "data.%c";
>>
>> or trickery with substrings of jobname as a valid solution, no.
>>
>> I am in two minds about the new behaviour: on the one hand it is
>> backward incompatible, on the other hand you *did* name the file
>> data.out, and I am not a fan of all the automatic black magic
>> that always goes on with file extensions in tex/mf/mp.
> 
> The behavior in TeX is rather simple and has been stable
> for some time in the systems I use (TeX Live), namely
> \jobname is the filename without its last extension (if
> there is any).
> 
> I don't see why all programs with a jobname capability can't
> do the same: follow tex's rules.
> 
> There is precedent: On the search side, tex searches for the
> file.name.tex and then for file.name (at least in TL2009).
> We had a discussion here about the search rules for mpost
> and came to a consensus that it be essentially the same as
> tex's: file.name.mp and then file.name.
> 
> As a work-around, surely
>   mpost --jobname=data data.out
> still works?
> 
> 
> Dan
> 
> Daniel H. Luecking
> Department of Mathematical Sciences
> 1 University of Arkansas
> Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
> 
> -- 
> http://tug.org/metapost/


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