Re: environment variable

+ Oliver Grewe <[email protected]>:

|  in our documents we have often something like:
| 
|  \usepackage{$HOME/path...}
| 
|  or
| 
|  \input{$HOME/path...}
| 
|  with tetex-1.0 it's working perfectly, but now we installed
| tetex-3.0 on one workstation and latex doesn't know about $HOME
| (UNIX environment variable for a home directory).

I just found a much better workaround than my previous attempt:

Let each user have TEXINPUTS in their environment set as follows:

  TEXINPUTS=.:$HOME/.texhomehack:

Then let them create a directory with a symlink in it:

  cd
  mkdir .texhomehack
  ln -s .. '.texhomehack/$HOME'

(single quotes absolutely mandatory).

Then \input{$HOME/foo/bar} should work just fine.

DO NOT replace .texhomehack in this hack by any directory in the
search path which will be searched recursively!  That will slow path
searching to a snail's pace.

I put the symlink in an otherwise empty directory rather than in the
home directory itself, partly to hide it from view, and partly to
avoid the possible confusion arising from the entire home directory
being in the search path.

Of course, I still don't recommend the practice.  Work very diligently
to get it phased out and replaced with proper use of the path
searching facilities.

- Harald

PS.  Are others seeing a very large delay on this list?