[tex-k] Bug in TeX 3.141592

[Heiko Oberdiek]

On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 06:08:21PM +0100, Sam Lauber wrote:

> I think I have found a bug in TeX.  According to ``TeX: The Program'', the 
> construction ``\input\input f'' is explictly prohibited (this is due to the 
> implementation of the functions that do \input).  But I put in ``file1''
> 
> file2
> 
> put in ``file2''
> 
> \message{In file2}
> 
> and ran ``tex \input\input file1''.  It did not print ``In file2'', and TeX did not 
> give an error.  It also had the strange effect of thinking my input file was 
> called ``.tex''!!  This is definitly a bug, because it is not what ``TeX: The 
> Program'' says.  Also if I try typing ``\input\input file1'' in response to the 
> `*' prompt, it does the same thing, except reverts to ``texput''.  

My interpretation is that the second \input finishes the file
name of the first input file. (The same would occur with
\input\relax.) This file does not contain an extension. Therefore
TeX adds ".tex" and looks for the file ".tex" and read it (e.g.
texmf/tex/latex/tools/.tex).
  Then the second file is input (f.tex, file1.tex or file2.tex --
there are a lot of spellings above).

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek at uni-freiburg.de>
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