Config files

As mentioned above, Kpathsea reads runtime configuration files named `texmf.cnf' for search path and other definitions. The search path used to look for these configuration files is named TEXMFCNF, and is constructed in the usual way, as described above, except that configuration files cannot be used to define the path, naturally; also, an `ls-R' database is not used to search for them.

Kpathsea reads all `texmf.cnf' files in the search path, not just the first one found; definitions in earlier files override those in later files. Thus, with the search path of `.:$TEXMF', values from `./texmf.cnf' override those from `$TEXMF/texmf.cnf'.

While (or instead of) reading this description, you may find it helpful to look at the distributed `texmf.cnf', which uses or at least mentions most features. The format of `texmf.cnf' files follows:

• Comments start with `%' and continue to the end of the line.
• Blank lines are ignored.
• A `\' at the end of a line acts as a continuation character, i.e., the next line is appended. Whitespace at the beginning of continuation lines is not ignored.
• Each remaining line must look like

  variable [. progname] [=] value
  

  where the `=' and surrounding whitespace is optional.
• The variable name may contain any character other than whitespace, `=', or `.', but sticking to `A-Za-z_' is safest.
• If `.progname' is present, the definition only applies if the program that is running is named (i.e., the last component of argv[0] is) progname or `progname.exe'. This allows different flavors of TeX to have different search paths, for example.
• value may contain any characters except `%' and `@'. (These restrictions are only necessary because of the processing done on `texmf.cnf' at build time, so you can stick those characters in after installation if you have to.) The `$var.prog' feature is not available on the right-hand side; instead, you must use an additional variable (see below for example). A `;' in value is translated to `:' if running under Unix; this is useful to write a single `texmf.cnf' which can be used under both Unix and NT. (If you really want `;''s in your filenames, add `-DALLOW_SEMICOLON_IN_FILENAMES' to CFLAGS.)
• All definitions are read before anything is expanded, so you can use variables before they are defined (like Make, unlike most other programs).

Here is a configuration file fragment illustrating most of these points:

% TeX input files -- i.e., anything to be found by \input or \openin ...
latex209_inputs = .:$TEXMF/tex/latex209//:$TEXMF/tex//
latex2e_inputs = .:$TEXMF/tex/latex//:$TEXMF/tex//
TEXINPUTS = .:$TEXMF/tex//
TEXINPUTS.latex209 = $latex209_inputs
TEXINPUTS.latex2e = $latex2e_inputs
TEXINPUTS.latex = $latex2e_inputs

Although this format has obvious similarities to Bourne shell scripts--change the comment character to #, disallow spaces around the =, and get rid of the .name convention, and it could be run through the shell. But there seemed little advantage to doing this, since all the information would have to passed back to Kpathsea and parsed there anyway, since the sh process couldn't affect its parent's environment.

The implementation of all this is in `kpathsea/cnf.c'.

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.