[tex-k] -format/-progname

[Hans Hagen]

At 03:53 28/10/2003, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

>I must admit that I do not understand how kpsewhich works.
>
>For instance,
>     kpsewhich -format='other text files' -progname=doc readme.txt
>returns
>     /usr/local/dtp/share/texmf-fonts/doc/fonts/euro/readme.txt
>
>The documentation says:
>`--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.
>
>If by default the format is guessed from the filename,  shouldn't it
>be possible to omit the -format option in this case?
>
>      kpsewhich -progname=doc readme.txt
>
>returned nothing.
>
>The last sentence of the documentation says that I could say
>
>     kpsewhich -format=.txt -progname=doc readme.txt
>
>but it didn't return anything.
>
>What does -format='other text files' really do?
>
>Another question is what the -progname option does.  The documentation
>says:
>
>`--progname=NAME'
>      Set the program name to NAME; default is `kpsewhich'.  This can
>      affect the search paths via the `.PROGNAM' feature in
>      configuration files (*note Config files::).
>
>This sounds like magic, but it seems that if I say
>
>      kpsewhich -format='other text files' -progname=doc readme.txt
>
>then it simply scans $TEXMFS/doc , or does it anything else?

I fully agree with you that -progname directive is indeed fuzzy esp in 
combination with "other text files" (btw, just 'other' would be more 
comfortable, esp since supporting "quoting" is painful in cross platform 
apps).

Maybe we need categories: 'programs and scripts' 
(pl,rb,py,java,exe,cmd,sh), documentation (pdf,ps,dvi,htm,html), fonts 
(pl,...)

Hans