NAME
LaTeX::Driver - Latex driver
VERSION
This document describes version 0.200.4 of "LaTeX::Driver".
SYNOPSIS
use LaTeX::Driver;
$drv = LaTeX::Driver->new( source => \$doc_text,
output => $filename,
format => 'pdf',
%other_params );
$ok = $drv->run;
$stats = $drv->stats;
$drv->cleanup($what);
DESCRIPTION
The LaTeX::Driver module encapsulates the details of invoking the Latex
programs to format a LaTeX document. Formatting with LaTeX is
complicated; there are potentially many programs to run and the output
of those programs must be monitored to determine whether further
processing is required.
This module runs the required commands in the directory specified,
either explicitly with the "dirname" option or implicitly by the
directory part of "basename", or in the current directory. As a result
of the processing up to a dozen or more intermediate files are created.
These can be removed with the "cleanup" method.
SOURCE
Source code can be found at <https://github.com/fordmason/LaTeX-Driver>
Feel free to fork and add your stuff!
SUBROUTINES/METHODS
"new(%params)"
This is the constructor method. It creates a driver object on which
the "run" method is used to format the document specified. The main
arguments are "source" and "output"; the "source" argument is
required to specify the input document; "output" is only mandatory
if "source" is a scalar reference.
The full list of arguments is as follows:
"source"
This parameter is mandatory; it can either specify the name of
the document to be formatted or be a reference to a scalar
containing the document source.
"output"
specifies the output for the formatted document; this may either
be a file name or be a scalar reference. In the latter case the
contents of the formatted document file is copied into the
scalar variable referenced.
"format"
the format of output required: one of "dvi" (TeX Device
Independent format), "ps" (PostScript) or "pdf" (Adobe Portable
Document Format). The follow special values are also accepted:
"pdf(ps)" (generates PDF via PostScript, using "dvips" and
"ps2pdf"), "pdf(dvi)" (generates PDF via dvi, using "dvipdfm").
If not specified then the format is determined from the name of
the output document if specified, or defaults to PDF.
"tmpdir"
Specifies whether the formatting should be done in a temporary
directory in which case the source document is copied into the
directory before formatting. This option can either take the
value 1, in which case a temporary directory is automatically
generated, or it is taken as the name of a subdirectory of the
system temporary directory. A temporary directory is always
created if the source document is specified as a scalar
reference.
"paths"
Specifies a mapping of program names to full pathname as a hash
reference. These paths override the paths determined at
installation time.
"maxruns"
The maximum number of runs of the formatter program (defaults to
10).
"extraruns"
The number of additional runs of the formatter program after the
document has stabilized.
"timeout"
Specifies a timeout in seconds within which any commands spawned
should finish.
"cleanup"
Specifies whether temporary files and directories should be
automatically removed when the object destructor is called.
Accepted values are "none" (do no cleanup), "logfiles" (remove
log files) and "tempfiles" (remove log and temporary files). By
default the destructor will remove the entire contents of any
automatically generated temporary directory, but will leave all
other files intact.
"indexstyle"
The name of a "makeindex" index style file that should be passed
to "makeindex".
"indexoptions"
Specifies additional options that should be passed to
"makeindex". Useful options are: "-c" to compress intermediate
blanks in index keys, "-l" to specify letter ordering rather
than word ordering, "-r" to disable implicit range formation.
Refer to makeindex(1) for full details.
"texinputs"
Specifies one or more directories to be searched for LaTeX
files.
"DEBUG"
Enables debug statements if set to a non-zero value.
"DEBUGPREFIX"
Sets the debug prefix, which is prepended to debug output if
debug statements. By default there is no prefix.
The constructor performs sanity checking on the options and will die
if the following conditions are detected:
* no source is specified
* an invalid format is specified
The constructor method returns a driver object.
"run()"
Format the document.
"stderr"
Holds the error output from subcommands, if the "-capture_stderr"
option was passed to "new()".
"stats()"
Returns a reference to a hash containing stats about the processing
that was performed, containing the following items:
"pages"
number of pages in the formatted document
"bytes"
number of bytes in the formatted document
"runs"
hash of the number of times each of the programs was run
Note: the return value will probably become an object in a future
version of the module.
"cleanup($what)"
Removes temporary intermediate files from the document directory and
resets the stats.
Not yet implemented
"program_path($program_name, $opt_value)"
Get or set the path to the named program. Can be used as a class
method to set the default path or as an object method to set the
path for that instance of the driver object.
There are a number of other methods that are used internally by the
driver. Calling these methods directly may lead to unpredictable
results.
"run_latex"
Runs the formatter ("latex" or "pdflatex").
"need_to_run_latex"
Determines whether the formatter needs to be run.
"reset_latex_required"
Reset the flags that indicate whether latex needs to be re-run
(invoked prior to each iteration of running any necessary commands).
"run_bibtex"
Runs bibtex to generate the bibliography.
"need_to_run_bibtex"
Determines whether bibtex needs to be run.
"run_makeindex"
Runs makeindex to generate the index.
"need_to_run_makeindex"
Determines whether makeindex needs to be run.
"run_dvips"
Runs dvips to generate postscript output from an intermediate ".dvi"
file.
"run_ps2pdf"
Runs ps2pdf to generate PDF output from an intermediate PostScript
file.
"run_pdf2ps"
Runs pdf2ps to generate PostScript output from an intermediate PDF
file.
"run_command"
Run a command in a controlled environment, allowing for operating
system differences.
"copy_to_output"
Copy the output to its final destination.
"throw"
Throw an exception.
"debug"
Print a debug message - the caller should test $DEBUG to determine
whether to invoke this function.
DIAGNOSTICS
The following errors may be detected by the constructor method.
not available on XXX
The module is not supported on MacOS, OS/2 or VMS (or on a host of
other operating systems but these are the only ones that are
explicitly tested for).
no source specified
The "source" parameter should be specified as the name of a LaTeX
source file or it should be a reference to a scalar variable holding
the LaTeX source document.
source is an invalid reference
"source" is a reference, but not a reference to a scalar variable
source file XXX.tex does not exist
The source file specified does not exist
output directory DIR does not exist
An "output" parameter was specified as a scalar value, which was
taken as the name of the output file, but the directory part of the
path does not exist.
invalid output format XXX
An output format was specified, either explicitly or implicitly as
the extension of the output file, but the output format specified is
not supported.
cannot create temporary directory
The module could not create the temporary directory, which is used
if the source is not specified as a filename, and the output is not
to be left in the same directory as the source, or if a temporary
directory name is specified explicitly.
cannot create temporary latex file
The module has determined that it needs to create a temporary file
containing the source document but it cannot.
cannot copy XXX.ext to temporary directory
The module was trying to copy the specified source file to the
temporary directory but couldn't. Perhaps you specified the
temporary directory name explicitly but the directory does not exist
or is not writeable.
The following errors may be detected when the driver's "run()" method is
called:
file XXX.tex does not exist
The source file does not exist; it may have been removed between the
time the constructor was called and the time that the driver was
run.
PROGRAM exited with errors: ERRORS
The named program ("latex" or "pdflatex") exited with the errors
listed. You may have errors in your source file.
bibtex FILE failed (EXITCODE)
The "bibtex" program exited with errors. These are not fully parsed
yet.
failed to open BASEPATH.cit
The driver generates its own temporary file listing the citations
for a document, so that it can determine whether the citations have
changed. This error indicates that it was unable to create the file.
makeindex FILE failed (EXITCODE)
The "makeindex" program exited with errors. These are not fully
parsed yet.
dvips FILE failed (EXITCODE)
The "dvips" program exited with errors. These are not fully parsed
yet.
ps2pdf FILE failed (EXITCODE)
The "ps2pdf" program exited with errors. These are not fully parsed
yet.
PROGNAME cannot be found, please specify its location
The pathname for the specified program was not found in the modules
configuration. The program may not have been found and the pathname
not been explicitly specified when the module was installed.
failed to copy FILE to OUTPUT
The driver failed to copy the formatted file to the specified output
location.
CONFIGURATION AND ENVIRONMENT
DEPENDENCIES
"LaTeX::Driver" depends on latex and friends being installed.
INCOMPATIBILITIES
None known.
BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
This is beta software - there are bound to be bugs and misfeatures. If
you have any comments about this software I would be very grateful to
hear them; email me at <a.ford@ford-mason.co.uk>.
Among the things I am aware of are:
* I haven't worked out how I am going to deal with tex-related
environment variables.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
* Look at how path variables could be specified to the filter
("TEXINPUTS", "TEXINPUTS_latex", "TEXINPUTS_pdflatex", "BIBINPUTS",
etc), and how these should interact with the system paths.
* Investigate pre- and post-processors and other auxiliary programs.
BACKGROUND
This module has its origins in the original "latex" filter that was part
of Template Toolkit prior to version 2.16. That code was fairly
simplistic; it created a temporary directory, copied the source text to
a file in that directory, and ran either "latex" or "pdflatex" on the
file once; if postscript output was requested then it would run "dvips"
after running "latex". This did not cope with documents that contained
forward references, a table of contents, lists of figures or tables,
bibliographies, or indexes.
The current module does not create a temporary directory for formatting
the document; it is given the name and location of an existing LaTeX
document and runs the latex programs in the directory specified (the
Template Toolkit plugin will be modified to set up a temporary
directory, copy the source text in, then run this module, extract the
output and remove the temporary directory).
INTERNALS
This section is aimed at a technical audience. It documents the internal
methods and subroutines as a reference for the module's developers,
maintainers and anyone interesting in understanding how it works. You
don't need to know anything about them to use the module and can safely
skip this section.
Formatting with LaTeX or PDFLaTeX
LaTeX documents can be formatted with "latex" or "pdflatex"; the former
generates a ".dvi" file (device independent - TeX's native output
format), which can be converted to PostScript or PDF; the latter program
generates PDF directly.
finds inputs in "TEXINPUTS", "TEXINPUTS_latex", "TEXINPUTS_pdflatex",
etc
Generating indexes
The standard program for generating indexes is "makeindex", is a general
purpose hierarchical index generator. "makeindex" accepts one or more
input files (".idx"), sorts the entries, and produces an output (".ind")
file which can be formatted.
The style of the generated index is specified by a style file (".ist"),
which is found in the path specified by the "INDEXSTYLE" environment
variable.
An alternative to "makeindex" is "xindy", but that program is not
widespread yet.
Generating bibliographies with BiBTeX
BiBTeX generates a bibliography for a LaTeX document. It reads the
top-level auxiliary file (".aux") output during the running of latex and
creates a bibliography file (".bbl") that will be incorporated into the
document on subsequent runs of latex. It looks up the entries specified
by \cite and \nocite commands in the bibliographic database files (.bib)
specified by the \bibliography commands. The entries are formatted
according to instructions in a bibliography style file (".bst"),
specified by the \bibliographystyle command.
Bibliography style files are searched for in the path specified by the
"BSTINPUTS" environment variable; for bibliography files it uses the
"BIBINPUTS" environment variable. System defaults are used if these
environment variables are not set.
Running Dvips
The "dvips" program takes a DVI file produced by TeX and converts it to
PostScript.
Running ps2pdf
The "ps2pdf" program invokes Ghostscript to converts a PostScript file
to PDF.
Running on Windows
Commands are executed with "cmd.exe". The syntax is:
cmd /c "cd $dir && $program $args"
This changes to the specified directory and executes the program there,
without affecting the working directory of the the Perl process.
Need more information on how to set environment variables for the
invoked programs.
Miscellaneous Information
This is a placeholder for information not yet incorporated into the rest
of the document.
May want to mention the kpathsea library, the "kpsewhich" program, the
web2c TeX distribution, TeX live, tetex, TeX on Windows, etc.
AUTHOR
Andrew Ford <a.ford@ford-mason.co.uk>
LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009-2011 Ford & Mason Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright (C) 2007 Andrew Ford. All Rights Reserved.
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO
Template::Plugin::Latex, latex(1), makeindex(1), bibtex(1), dvips(1),
The dvips manual
There are a number of books and other documents that cover LaTeX:
* The LaTeX Companion
* Web2c manual