[tex-live] Pathological search path for TeXMF.cnf

Akira Kakuto kakuto at fuk.kindai.ac.jp
Sat Mar 14 13:43:00 CET 2015


Dear Philip,

> Why might there be a "share" under /bin/win32 ?

Usually there may not be. But if there is, kpathsea
sees it.

>> $SELFAUTOLOC/texmf-local/web2c
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/texmf-dist/web2c
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/texmf/web2c

> Why might there be a texmf-local/texmf-dist/texmf under /bin/win32

Usually there may not be. But if there are, kpathsea
sees them.

>> $SELFAUTODIR
>> $SELFAUTODIR/share/texmf-local/web2c
>> $SELFAUTODIR/share/texmf-dist/web2c
>> $SELFAUTODIR/share/texmf/web2c
>> $SELFAUTODIR/texmf-local/web2c

> Why does the configuration assume that there will be a "texmf-local" at
> all, given that the user can specify (e.g.,) /TeX/Live/TeXMF/Local as
> the local equivalent of "texmf-local" at installation time.

Note that the rule is set at compile time of binaries.
I think the names are mainly due to historical reason,
based on, probably teTeX.
A user may assume the existence of .../share/texmf-local/web2c,
even if you don't need it.

Note that the distributed texmf.cnf is searched in the (2nd) last
location in order that users can modify variables. The "texmf" was added
later because Hans wanted it.

I think the rule itself is not related to the loss of performance.
Try
kpsewhich --all texmf.cnf

This will show all texmf.cnf's. If there are unnecessary ones, remove
them.

If you really want, you can define an environment variable

TEXMFCNF=D:/TeX/Live/2014;D:/TeX/Live/2014/texmf-dist/web2c

without a trailing semicolon.
In this case only the above two directories are searched.

Thank you,
Akira



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