NAME¶
arlatex - archive a number of ancillary LaTeX files into a master .tex file
SYNOPSIS¶
arlatex [
--outfile=
filename.tex]
--document=
filename .tex filename ...
arlatex
--version
arlatex
--help
DESCRIPTION¶
arlatex is an archiving program like
shar,
tar,
zip,
etc. Unlike those other archivers, however,
arlatex is designed
specifically for use with LaTeX.
arlatex takes the name of a master
.tex file and a number of ancillary files used by that master file
(e.g.,
.tex,
.sty,
.cls, and
.eps files). From
these,
arlatex outputs a single file that, when it's run through
latex, both regenerates the ancillary files and compiles the document
into a
.dvi file.
arlatex has a few advantages over other archiving programs:
- •
- The .tex files produced by arlatex are in a plain-text
format. They are therefore perfectly portable and trivial to e-mail to
colleagues.
- •
- arlatex needs only LaTeX to run. There is no dependence on any
external tools.
- •
- There is no explicit extraction step. As the generated document is run
through latex, it extracts the ancillary files and builds the
document in the same step. The user running latex may not even
notice that additional files are being produced.
arlatex works by writing a number of
"\begin{filecontents*}" ... "\end{filecontents*}"
blocks to the output file, followed by the contents of the master file. (In
fact, any LaTeX comments at the beginning of the master file are hoisted to
the top of the generated file. This enables the author to draw attention, if
so desired, to the fact that ancillary files will be generated.) The
"filecontents*" environment, part of standard LaTeX2e, writes its
contents verbatim to a specified file.
OPTIONS¶
- --version
- Output the arlatex script's version number.
- --help
- Output brief arlatex usage information.
- --document=.tex file
- Specify the master document. The output from arlatex is this file
with all of the other files named on the command line prepended to it.
Note that "--document" is a mandatory parameter;
arlatex will abort with an error message if "--document"
is not specified.
- --outfile=.tex file
- Specify the output file. The output file looks just like the master
document, but with a number of "filecontents*" environments
preceding the "\documentclass" line. If "--outfile" is
not specified, output will be written to the standard output device.
EXAMPLES¶
Suppose you have a paper called
paper.tex that loads a custom package
with "\usepackage{mypackage}". You want to submit the paper to a
conference, but you want to be absolutely certain that
mypackage.sty
doesn't get lost as your paper is shuttled from person to person. Here's how
arlatex can be of use:
arlatex --document=paper.tex mypackage.sty --outfile=paper-submit.tex
When
paper-submit.tex is processed with
latex, it builds just like
the original
paper.tex, except that it additionally creates a
mypackage.sty in the current directory:
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3.1)
(paper-submit.tex
LaTeX2e <1999/12/01> patch level 1
Babel <v3.6Z> and hyphenation patterns for american, french, german,
ngerman, italian, nohyphenation, loaded.
LaTeX Warning: Writing file `./mypackage.sty'.
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 1999/09/10 v1.4a Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/size12.clo)) (mypackage.sty)
.
.
.
As another example, here's how you could bundle together all of the files needed
to build a large document for longevity:
arlatex --document=thesis.tex abstract.tex introduction.tex
background.tex approach.tex experiments.tex relatedwork.tex
conclusions.tex before.eps after.eps fast.eps slow.eps
podunkUthesis.cls --outfile=thesis-all.tex
As the number of files to archive together increases it becomes more cumbersome
to run
arlatex manually. Fortunately, using
arlatex with
bundledoc is straightforward.
bundledoc finds all of the files
needed to build the document, and
arlatex combines them into a single
file. The following are examples of the "bundle:" line you might use
in a
bundledoc configuration file:
- Unix:
-
bundle: (arlatex --document=$BDBASE.tex $BDINPUTS \
--outfile=$BDBASE-all.tex)
- Windows:
-
bundle: arlatex --document=%BDBASE%.tex %BDINPUTS% \
--outfile=%BDBASE%-all.tex
See the
bundledoc documentation for more information.
CAVEATS¶
arlatex makes use of LaTeX2e's "filecontents*" environment.
"filecontents*" refuses to overwrite an existing file. However, it
also refuses to create a file that exists
anywhere that LaTeX can find
it. That is, if the user running
latex on an
arlatex-generated
.tex file already has a
/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/whatever/whatever.sty file then
"filecontents*" will refuse to create a
whatever.sty file,
even in a different directory.
SEE ALSO¶
bundledoc(1),
latex(1),
shar(1),
tar(1),
zip(1)
AUTHOR¶
Scott Pakin,
scott+bdoc@pakin.org