[XeTeX] How to finish the installation of XeTeX 0.99993 (on MacOS)?

[Christian Boitet]

Dear TeX fans,					13/11/16

it is the first time I post anything on this list: I have used LaTeX for lectures, slides, conference papers, etc. for many years, I have a complete reference book, and always found answers in it or on the Web.
This time, I am quite stuck! One Japanese colleague has used XeTeX on her Mac and passed me her files to do some debugging concerning the bibliography.

I am using TeXShop (latest version), I reinstalled MacLive, and then MacTeX-2016, which are supposed to come with XeTeX. No way.
The message is always the same. Trying to complie from TeXShop:

kpathsea: Running mktexfmt xelatex.fmt
warning: Configuration file texmf.cnf not found! Searched these directories:
/opt/local/bin:/opt/local:/opt:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/texmf/web2c:/opt/texmf/web2c:/.:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c
Trying to proceed...
/opt/local/bin/mktexfmt: line 336: /texconfig/tcfmgr: No such file or directory
fmtutil: config file `fmtutil.cnf' not found.
I can't find the format file `xelatex.fmt'!


Or, trying xelatex directly:

...Mutsuko-Cogalex-20161112-rvCB: xelatex CogCog-Alex-20161112-rvCB.tex
warning: Configuration file texmf.cnf not found! Searched these directories:
/opt/local/bin:/opt/local:/opt:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/texmf/web2c:/opt/texmf/web2c:/.:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c
Trying to proceed...
This is XeTeX, Version 3.141592-2.2-0.996-patch1 (Web2C 7.5.6)
kpathsea: Running mktexfmt xelatex.fmt
warning: Configuration file texmf.cnf not found! Searched these directories:
/opt/local/bin:/opt/local:/opt:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/share/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/texmf-local/web2c:/opt/local/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/bin/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/texmf/web2c:/opt/texmf/web2c:/.:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c:/opt/local/share/texmf/web2c
Trying to proceed...
/opt/local/bin/mktexfmt: line 336: /texconfig/tcfmgr: No such file or directory
fmtutil: config file `fmtutil.cnf' not found.
I can't find the format file `xelatex.fmt'!


I then tried to reinstall separately XeTeX (version 0.9993). 
The build (using build.sh) was quite successful, and created after a quite long process a directory named "build-x86_64" and apparently correctly built.
But I DON'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO FINISH THE INSTALL, which should place the files where expected.
The INSTALL file (inside build-x86_64) says somewhat cryptically:

INSTALL for XeTeX Snapshots

This distribution is essentially a stripped-down version of 
the TeXlive distribution with some additional libraries.

All source code is in the directory source; the build.sh
scripts will generate and populate a directory build.
 
The actual code of XeTeX is in source/texk/web2c/xetexdir
and its subdirectories.

* build.sh         builds a native xetex on your system
* build.sh --ppc   crosscompiles for osx-ppx from osx-intel
* build.sh --mingw crosscompiles xetex for mingw32 on i686-linux

XeTeX does not need a run-time pool file, and it locates
texmf.cnf based on its relative position in the TeX tree.

Post-compilation installation should be a simple matter 
of copying the executable to a normal place for web2c 
binaries and generating the desired formats.

What is "the executable"? The complete directory (transformed in an .app file -- a "package")? Some of the executables in the texk>kpathsea directory?
And what is "a normal place for web2c" ???

I tried hard but did not find any tutorial or online discussion on that matter. Please help!

Thanks in advance, 
Xan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://tug.org/pipermail/xetex/attachments/20161113/1ce7a343/attachment-0001.html>