Re: Output to directory patch

[Al Haji-Ali]

Hello Ikumi,

> The rule which preview-latex determines the location of relavant files
> is rather complicated and I don't understand comprehensively. I think it
> isn't centralized and I can only summarize the result here:
>
Thanks for this!
I am still looking into the issue of preview-latex. I am also very confused by 
what it is doing. In particular, I want to move the preview files into the 
output directory (just like I did with _region_.tex) but I can't seem to find 
the relevant code lines.

I will check your testcases to see if I can figure it out.

>> With that being said, I tried a simple example with a subdir input and
>> it works fine for me.
>
> Well, didn't you examine \input rather than \include? As far as I can
> see, \include causes to generate aux file while \input does not. Please
> try example like these:
>
Apologies! You did say "include" but I use "\input" normally and that's what my 
mind jumped to.

Testing your example, I can see the error you mentioned. As you said, the tex 
engine tries to create an aux file in a "subdir" directory which exists under 
master root (since that's where one is including the file file from) but 
naturally does not exist under "build".

I have no idea how to fix this. It is a bizarre implementation detail of tex 
engines that such directories are not created when `--output-directory` is 
passed. It seems even "latexmk" when provided with "--output-directory" fails 
on a first run for the same reason, only to automatically create the 
"build/subdir" on a second run and succeed. It is not ideal, but I could 
potentially recreate this solution, what do you think?

On the other hand, I updated the patch to address a couple of points (like how 
a build directory was being created in sub-directories). Instead of attaching 
more files, I put up the patch on github so that people always have the latest 
version:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/haji-ali/auctex/tex-build/etc/auctex-output-dir.patch

> makeinfo accepts "-o" or "--output" option, with slightly different
> meaning from "--output-dir" of (la)tex. Try "man makeinfo".
>
OK, I now pass "-o" for the output.

>
> I think you can think of amstex as a variant of plain tex.
>
This is now set.

>
> upmendex is a variant of makeindex and compatible with respect to their
> arguments.
> https://ctan.org/pkg/upmendex/
> https://github.com/t-tk/upmendex-package
>
This is now set.

The only remaining command as far as I can see is ConTeXt but looking at the 
man-page I am not sure it supports an output directory. Can someone confirm?

Best regards,
-- Al