[tex-live] %&latex and metapost using TL 2003

Lars Madsen daleif at imf.au.dk
Fri May 28 16:06:23 CEST 2004


I know it's a bit late but I haven't had time to install TL 2003 untill
now.

The problem is basically stated in the subject.

Using %&latex as a way of getting metapost to use LaTeX to typeset the
labes instead of using TeX.

This has been working at least with TL 7.

A simple example

verbatimtex
%&latex
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
etex
beginfig(1)
  label.rt(btex \LaTeX etex, origin);
endfig;
end

I get the error:

This is MetaPost, Version 0.641 (Web2C 7.5.2)
(/a/vol/packages/TL/2003/texmf/web2c/cp8bit.tcx)
(hest2.mp/opt/packages/TL/2003/bin/i386-linux/makempx: Command failed: tex
--parse-first-line mpxerr.tex; see mpxerr.log

>> hest2.mp
>> hest2.mpx
! Unable to make mpx file.
l.7   label.rt(btex
                    \LaTeX etex, origin);
Transcript written on hest2.log.



I don't want to inform my users that from now on you will have to either
set the TEX variable to latex or use

mpost -tex=latex

(because then I'll get questions like: why doesn't the old syntax work
anymore)

Is there no way of getting back to the old behavior, that is metapost
actually understanding the &latex line?


/daleif

``You cannot help men permanently by doing for them
what they could and should do for themselves. ''
 -- Abraham Lincoln



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