[NTG-context] updating ConTeXt with ctxtools

[Sanjoy Mahajan]

> In any case, I have probably misunderstood the thread. Has a summary
> been posted somewhere that I might consult?

I need to summarize all the Linux installation methods on the Wiki,
once I get it all straight in my head.  Right now in reality and in my
head it's a nightmare because of all the flavors (texlive, tetex 2 or
3, etc.) and the gazillion map files that could be anywhere.  ConTeXt
tries to work everywhere so it has a hard life.

I don't know much about what MacOS X does, but if you're not using a
graphical installation method, it should be like BSD 4.[0123] Unix
that I once used.  In which case it should work mostly like Linux.

Here's what I do now and did just half hour ago to update to the
2006.08.08 version.  I use bash (a mostly sh-compatiable shell), which
the MacOS terminal runs too I think.  The $ below is my bash prompt
and everything after it is what I type:

  $ TEXMFLOCAL=/home/sanjoy/texmf texmfstart ctxtools --updatecontext

This fixes the problem that ctxtools uses (I think) Windows quoting in
this source line:

            tree = `kpsewhich --expand-path $TEXMFLOCAL`.chomp rescue nil

In Unix ruby (like in Perl) the $TEXMFLOCAL is expanded by the shell
because of the $, and the result is run by the backticks.  Usually
TEXMFLOCAL has no setting in the shell or environment so ruby runs the
command with $TEXMFLOCAL replaced by an empty string, giving:

   kpsewhich --expand-path 

So kpsewhich complains that it didn't get an argument for
--expand-path (or --expand-var).  The long-term fix is to figure out
how to quote that works in Windows and Unix, but I don't know how
since I don't use Windows.

The short-term hack is to set TEXMFLOCAL just while running ctxtools,
which is done by the command above that I run.

So maybe try that using the vanilla distribution (so with \012
restored) and report back what happens and let's see if we can find a
fix if something else doesn't work.  My computers run Linux but my
partner has a MacOS 10.3 machine and I'll use it for ConTeXt
experiments if needed.

-Sanjoy

`Never underestimate the evil of which men of power are capable.'
         --Bertrand Russell, _War Crimes in Vietnam_, chapter 1.