[Rd] Windows vignettes, shQuote, texi2dvi

[Gabor Grothendieck]

Further searching also found it at:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/texdraw/manual/texi2dvi

but its the UNIX shell script.  I looked at it quickly and it
probably would not be that hard to translate it into R (about half
of it is just argument processing) replacing
the existing texi2dvi R command with the equivalent of that
script.   It could be added to the wishlist.

A kludge might be to run that shell script on windows under cygwin
although that might still not fix the problem of building vignettes 
from the R CMD build tool.

Personally, I am just going to stick with MiKTeX's texify.exe and build
vignettes from the .tex file manually for now.

Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck <at> myway.com> writes:

: 
: That's interesting but its not in my tree.  I downloaded it
: off the net (all 500MB+ !).
: 
: Liaw, Andy <andy_liaw <at> merck.com> writes:
: 
: : 
: : I don't know the issue, but a search for texi2dvi under my TeXLive tree
: : found a shell script by that name in the directory
: : texmf\doc\graphics\texdraw.  Can that be made to work, in conjunction with
: : the shell in the Rtool bundle?  Just curious.  (This is fpTeX installed 
from
: : the TeXLive 2004 CD.)
: : 
: : Andy
: : 
: : > From: Gabor Grothendieck
: : > 
: : > From:   Uwe Ligges <ligges <at> statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
: : > > Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
: : > > 
: : > > > I noticed a shQuote fix for Windows in the svn logs.
: : > > > Just wanted to point out that this will favorably 
: : > > > affect texi2dvi on Windows which previously used
: : > > > UNIX quoting and so generated an incorrect Windows
: : > > > command. (Note that texi2dvi is used when creating
: : > > > vignettes.)
: : > > > 
: : > > > Another problem is that the recommended tex
: : > > > distribution for Windows, fptex, does not have texi2dvi
: : > > > in the first place. The alternative, MiKTeX, is harder
: : > > > to install
: : > > 
: : > > I heared some people think so, but apparently it is not a 
: : > big problem.
: : > 
: : > I installed both so I know from experience that MikTex was 
: : > harder to install.   
: : > 
: : > The problem is that its a lot of work to set up a package
: : > building environment on Windows. There are numerous systems to 
: : > install, TeX, UNIX tools, perl, Microsoft Help plus path problems.   
: : > 
: : > MikTex is just one
: : > more obstacle.  MikTex seems like its a slicker distribution
: : > package so its too bad its more work to set up.  The main
: : > problems with fptex are not configuration but that (1) the
: : > package is so large that it takes a long time to download and
: : > (2) its missing crucial elements, viz. texi2dvi.
: : > 
: : > > 
: : > > 
: : > > > than fptex but instructions are available
: : > > > and it does have an equivalent to texi2dvi called texify.exe;
: : > > > however, R still does not know about texify.exe 
: : > > > resulting in additional installation hassles,
: : > > > viz. setting the texi2dvi option or setting up a texi2dvi.bat
: : > > > file yourself that calls texify.exe or just forgetting
: : > > > about texi2dvi and manually running the necessary tex commands
: : > > > when creating vignettes on Windows.
: : > > 
: : > > texi2dvi is also available in MikTeX, see package 
: : > miktex-texinfo-bin.
: : > > 
: : > > See also ?texi2dvi in R to see how you can set something 
: : > different, e.g. 
: : > > "texify", which is explicitly given in the examples.
: : > > 
: : > > 
: : > > 
: : > > > There are also additional problems related to using the
: : > > > perl package-building scripts in Windows. I can create the
: : > > > zoo vignette using:
: : > > > 
: : > > > setwd("...whatever...")
: : > > > Sweave("zoo.Rnw")
: : > > > texi2dvi("zoo.tex")
: : > > > 
: : > > > provided I modify the source to texi2dvi to use the
: : > > > appropriate quoting but even with that modification,
: : > > > the perl package build scripts only build
: : > > > the vignette as far as the zoo.tex file and I must
: : > > > do the rest by hand so there is some problem with
: : > > > the scripts or in how they interact with R.
: : > > 
: : > > Are you going to provide a patch?
: : > 
: : > I assume the shQuote change obviates the need for my kludge to
: : > texi2dvi.   If it were not written in perl I would have looked
: : > at the script part too but relearning perl provides too high 
: : > an obstacle timewise.  It seems that the direction is to move
: : > the scripts to R anyways so I assume perl will ultimately be 
: : > eliminated from the R distribution simplifying this sort of 
: : > maintenance.
: : > 
: : > ______________________________________________
: : > R-devel <at> stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
: : > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
: : > 
: : >
: : 
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