May 2005 - ntg-pdftex - NTG Mailing Lists

pdftex and xpdf (and its security bugs): What about a libxpdf?
by frank＠kuesterei.ch 24 Jan '06

24 Jan '06

Dear pdftex developers, during the last months security support for software containing xpdf code was a nightmare - not only that there were many security issues discovered, moreover everybody used a different patch, it was unclear to what extent older versions were affected, and so forth. This was also a problem for us, the teTeX maintainer in Debian, which currently has three versions of pdftex with three different versions of the xpdf code. What would you think about creating a shared library, "libxpdf", and using that for pdftex, either linked dynamically (for Linux/Unix distributions) or statically (for TeX-live and friends)? There is already such a library, libpoppler, a fork of the xpdf code (http://poppler.freedesktop.org/) However, I do not know whether the xpdf author, Derek B. Noonburg, is generally unwilling to create a shared library, or whether people simply didn't ask him. Personally I would prefer to have as little a number of versions of the same code, and thus to get a shared library from xpdf proper. If you agree, I would be oblidged if one of you would contact Derek Noonburg (derekn(a)foolabs.com) and ask him. He seems to be a little unresponsive at times, and has not answered a similar question from the maintainer of the xpdf package in Debian for a couple of weeks now. Maybe we can convince him that this is a good idea if he is approached from different sides. Alternatively, if he is unwilling to make this change, do you think using libpoppler would be feasible? Many thanks in advance, Frank Küster -- Frank Küster Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich Debian Developer

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changes in forthcomming release
by The Thanh Han 22 Jul '05

22 Jul '05

Hi, I have applied most of patches and suggestions from Hartmut. There are still a few pending issues: 1) while we are renaming some promitives to be consistent, would it be better to change the following as well: pdfoptionpdfminorversion -> pdfminorversion pdfoptionalwaysusepdfpagebox -> pdfforcepagebox pdfoptionpdfinclusionerrorlevel -> ??? 2) what about moving everything from pdfxtex to pdftex and remove pdfxtex? 3) should the pkmode and microinterval patches be in as well? Martin, can you please wait for a few days, I want to make another snapshot this week. Thanh

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[ pdftex-Bugs-359 ] pdftex generates errors when it does not have to - eg \pdfinfo
by noreply＠sarovar.org 15 Jul '05

15 Jul '05

Bugs item #359, was opened at 2005-05-30 19:51 You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=493&aid=359&group_id=106 Category: None Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 3 Submitted By: Taco Hoekwater (taco) Assigned to: Nobody (None) Summary: pdftex generates errors when it does not have to - eg \pdfinfo Initial Comment: The following submitted on behalf of Jonathan Fine: pdftex generates errors when it does not have to. This fault prevents the build of Python docs on some platforms. The fix may be to remove the error-generating code· For more details, see my posting to comp.text.tex. Google link: <http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/msg/4b4842202ce88cda?hl=en> Copy and paste ============== There is, in my opinion, a problem with pdftex. (This is not to say that the macros used could not be improved.) pdftex exits on \pdfinfo error. TeX does not exit on error. == $ pdftex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159-1.10b (Web2C 7.4.5) **\pdfoutput 0 {/usr/share/texmf/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg} *\pdfinfo pdfTeX error (ext1): \pdfinfo used while \pdfoutput is not set. <*> \pdfinfo No pages of output. Transcript written on texput.log. == The present semantics of \pdfinfo are confused. For example, I _can_ use \pdfinfo and generate dvi! I just have to be a bit sneaky. == $ pdftex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159-1.10b (Web2C 7.4.5) **\pdfoutput 1 {/usr/share/texmf/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg} *\pdfinfo {} *\pdfoutput 0 *\shipout\hbox{} [1] *\end Output written on texput.dvi (1 page, 128 bytes). == Here, if pdf is not being generated, pdfinfo is ignored. Suppose the semantics of \pdfinfo were something like: \pdfinfo{ ... } Stores information that is written to the PDF file, if pdftex generates a PDF file. Otherwise ignored. Then the error that prompted this thread would not have occurred. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >Comment By: Taco Hoekwater (taco) Date: 2005-05-30 20:05 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=1608 Relevant bit of code: procedure check_pdfoutput(s: str_number); begin if pdf_output <= 0 then begin print_nl("pdfTeX error (ext1): "); print(s); print(" used while \pdfoutput is not set"); succumb; end; end The fastest resolution, of course, is to change the test to "pdf_output < 0" so that the error is also generated in dvi processing mode. But Jonathan's proposal is also valid, at least for mode-independant commands like \pdfinfo. Or maybe generate a normal TeX error message? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=493&aid=359&group_id=106

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rc1
by The Thanh Han 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

Hi Martin, I don't plan to upload further snapshots, so can you please make a pretest release or some rc1? Thanh

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[ pdftex-Bugs-359 ] pdftex generates errors when it does not have to - eg \pdfinfo
by noreply＠sarovar.org 30 May '05

30 May '05

Bugs item #359, was opened at 2005-05-30 19:51 You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=493&aid=359&group_id=106 Category: None Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 3 Submitted By: Taco Hoekwater (taco) Assigned to: Nobody (None) Summary: pdftex generates errors when it does not have to - eg \pdfinfo Initial Comment: The following submitted on behalf of Jonathan Fine: pdftex generates errors when it does not have to. This fault prevents the build of Python docs on some platforms. The fix may be to remove the error-generating code· For more details, see my posting to comp.text.tex. Google link: <http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/msg/4b4842202ce88cda?hl=en> Copy and paste ============== There is, in my opinion, a problem with pdftex. (This is not to say that the macros used could not be improved.) pdftex exits on \pdfinfo error. TeX does not exit on error. == $ pdftex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159-1.10b (Web2C 7.4.5) **\pdfoutput 0 {/usr/share/texmf/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg} *\pdfinfo pdfTeX error (ext1): \pdfinfo used while \pdfoutput is not set. <*> \pdfinfo No pages of output. Transcript written on texput.log. == The present semantics of \pdfinfo are confused. For example, I _can_ use \pdfinfo and generate dvi! I just have to be a bit sneaky. == $ pdftex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159-1.10b (Web2C 7.4.5) **\pdfoutput 1 {/usr/share/texmf/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg} *\pdfinfo {} *\pdfoutput 0 *\shipout\hbox{} [1] *\end Output written on texput.dvi (1 page, 128 bytes). == Here, if pdf is not being generated, pdfinfo is ignored. Suppose the semantics of \pdfinfo were something like: \pdfinfo{ ... } Stores information that is written to the PDF file, if pdftex generates a PDF file. Otherwise ignored. Then the error that prompted this thread would not have occurred. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=493&aid=359&group_id=106

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another snapshot
by The Thanh Han 28 May '05

28 May '05

Hi, I have uploaded another snapshot with the patch removing the spurious space after some keywords by Hartmut. Thanh

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[ pdftex-Bugs-345 ] pdftex-syntax.txt: typo in \pdfobj
by noreply＠sarovar.org 28 May '05

28 May '05

Bugs item #345, was opened at 2005-05-17 15:01 You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=493&aid=345&group_id=106 Category: Documentation Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Heiko Oberdiek (oberdiek) Assigned to: Hartmut Henkel (hhenkel) Summary: pdftex-syntax.txt: typo in \pdfobj Initial Comment: Hello, the rules for \pdfobj in texk/web2c/pdftexdir/pdftex-syntax.txt are wrong: \pdfobj <object type spec> <object type spec> --> reserveobjnum | [useobjnum <number>] [<attr spec>] [stream [<attr spec>]] <object contents> <object contents> --> <file spec> | <general text> The first [<attr spec>] should be removed. Result: ... <object type spec> --> reserveobjnum | [useobjnum <number>] [stream [<attr spec>]] <object contents> Yours sincerely Heiko <oberdiek(a)uni-freiburg.de> PS: A little surprised that the file has DOS line endings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >Comment By: Heiko Oberdiek (oberdiek) Date: 2005-05-28 01:29 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=1276 Hello, the attached file also fixes other errors and typos in syntax descriptions. Yours sincerely Heiko <oberdiek(a)uni-freiburg.de> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=493&aid=345&group_id=106

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[ pdftex-Feature Requests-354 ] pdftex-syntax.html
by noreply＠sarovar.org 28 May '05

28 May '05

Feature Requests item #354, was opened at 2005-05-28 00:46 You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=496&aid=354&group_id=106 Category: None Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Heiko Oberdiek (oberdiek) Assigned to: Nobody (None) Summary: pdftex-syntax.html Initial Comment: Hello, I have written some scripts to convert the syntax of pdfTeX into XHTML with non-terminals as links. Makefile rules: pdftex-syntax.xml: pdftex-t.tex syntax-xml.pl ./syntax-xml.pl $< pdftex-syntax.html: pdftex-syntax.xsl syntax-html.xml xsltproc -o $@ $+ The .tar archive contains: * syntax-xml.pl: Perl script that uses pdftex-t.tex as input and generates pdftex-syntax.xml * pdftex-syntax.xml: The generated XML file * pdftex-syntax.dtd: DTD for pdftex-syntax.xml * syntax-html.xsl: XSLT stylesheet for generating pdftex-syntax.html * pdftex-syntax.html: The generated HTML file * syntax-html.css: Cascading stylesheet for HTMl file Yours sincerely Heiko <oberdiek(a)uni-freiburg.de> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: http://sarovar.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=496&aid=354&group_id=106

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pdftex snapshot
by The Thanh Han 27 May '05

27 May '05

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Re: [NTG-pdftex] pdftex snapshot
by Fabrice Popineau 26 May '05

26 May '05

* Hartmut Henkel <hartmut_henkel(a)gmx.de> writes: Sorry to lose your time. I was missing this one: > t1_save_offset = 0; It slipped off when I patched my source tree. You were on the right track asking if pdfTeX was defined. Thanks for the help, Fabrice

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