![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/46562c7d27388490d62e8d7a5bc960dd.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 6/10/2019 3:03 PM, Pavel Sanda wrote:
On Fri, Jun 07, 2019 at 09:12:18PM +0200, Hans Hagen wrote:
On 6/7/2019 5:53 PM, Pavel Sanda wrote:
The choice of pdftex log line breaks at 80 chars makes automatic parsing of errors and reporting the chosen ones by 3rd party apps unnecesarilly hard.
I couldn't find any command line switch to turn this feature off (CMIIW) and using max_print_line variable is problematic (you don't want to mess with texmf.cnf as an independent app and using it as environment variable will give you headache with portability to different platforms).
hm, you can have an additional cnf file in your local tree with overloads ... messing around with that and/or env vars is normally the least of ones problems with using tex as component
Would be adding command line parameter (like --max-print-line=num) or even disabling the line break by default possible in some future versions? Or is there some better option I missed?
it makes no sense to add tons of extra arguments to suit specific needs while there is the cnf file that can do the job
I see your points, but .cnf file is good solution if you do something manually for yourself not for generic app which might be sharing tex with other uses/apps on very different systems. In that case it's just absurd to write routines to manage .cnf files and solving potential conflicts, paths issues, etc. -- just for the sake of seeing unambiguous error output on longer line.
I understand your fear of overcrowding by possible commandline arguments, so if there is aversion to an additional switch, would you consider to change the default of the line length for the log file? I can see that having 80 cols make sense if you sit on small console and watching output, but does it have a sense for regular file which can be edited/processed by completely different beasts? That is not up to me but to those who manage the distribution. But even
Which is why one can also set an environment variable which normally is no big deal (after all one can write a small wrapper to call pdftex with that setting). You also need to keep in mind that when you depend on some existing installations that users can have set all kind of properties. (pdf)TeX has been used in all kind of scenarios for decades so that proves that it's all doable. then your large value might not suit others. There's also the error context size, and special character escaping and such, so any app needs to take that into account. Anyway, if someone wants to implement a command line switch (which then probably has to be done for other engines too) fine, but often such common features influence multiple engines. However, don't expect more command line options in for instance the luatex engine (one can control most of these these aspects at runtime from the lua end). Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------