Re: Using a macro makes pdfetex quits and exits with bad status

I don't appreciate your comparing me with other posters to this list; it's
tiring and means I have less patience for responding to your queries.  The
other posters have tried to help you and you should be grateful.

Comments below.

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 10:05:24PM +0200, Christopher Dimech wrote:
> 
> Let't try again
> 
> This is what I have done
> 
>  2001  cd /home/hagbard/Admir/source/texinfo
>  2002  ls
>  2003  rm configure
>  2004  ./autogen.sh
> 
>  2000  cd /home/hagbard/Admir/build/texinfo
>  2001  ../../source/texinfo/configure
>  2002  make
>  2003  sudo make install
> 
> Then I did
> 
> sudo make TEXMF=/usr/local/share/texmf install-tex

This looks all correct.

> Here is the consequence
> 
> sudo make TEXMF=/usr/local/share/texmf install-tex
> cd doc && make TEXMF=/usr/local/share/texmf install-tex
> make[1]: Entering directory '/home/hagbard/Admir/build/texinfo/doc'
> test -n "/usr/local/share/texmf" || (echo "TEXMF must be set." >&2; exit 1)
> /bin/bash /home/hagbard/Admir/source/texinfo/build-aux/install-sh -d /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/generic/epsf
> /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/texinfo.tex /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/texinfo.tex
> /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/texinfo-ja.tex /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/texinfo-ja.tex
> /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/epsf.tex /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/generic/epsf/epsf.tex
> for f in txi-ca.tex txi-cs.tex txi-de.tex txi-en.tex txi-es.tex txi-fi.tex txi-fr.tex txi-hu.tex txi-is.tex txi-it.tex txi-ja.tex txi-nb.tex txi-nl.tex txi-nn.tex txi-pl.tex txi-pt.tex txi-ru.tex txi-sr.tex txi-tr.tex txi-uk.tex; do \
>   /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/$f /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/$f; done
> make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/hagbard/Admir/build/texinfo/doc'
> 
> Finally I run texi2pdf,
> 
> hagbard@fuckup:
> + ~/01cuneus/tdr/06ch
> texi2pdf 06a-amcoh.texi
> /usr/local/bin/texi2dvi: texinfo.tex appears to be broken.
> This may be due to the environment variable TEX set to something
> other than (plain) tex, a corrupt texinfo.tex file, or
> to tex itself simply not working.
> This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.18 (TeX Live 2017/Debian) (preloaded format=etex)
>  restricted \write18 enabled.
> entering extended mode
> (./txiversion.tex
> ! I can't find file `texinfo.tex'.
> l.1 \input texinfo.tex
>                        @bye
> (Press Enter to retry, or Control-D to exit)
> Please type another input file name:
> ! Emergency stop.
> l.1 \input texinfo.tex
>                        @bye
> No pages of output.
> Transcript written on txiversion.log.
> /usr/local/bin/texi2dvi: quitting.

The first thing I would do is run

pdfetex 06a-amcoh.texi

and see if the same error occurs.   If it does, you need to investigate
TeX's search list for files.  You could try running

export TEXINPUTS=/usr/local/share/texmf:$TEXINPUTS

and running pdfetex again.  See Info node "(kpathsea)Path sources".

Apparently you can also run

KPATHSEA_DEBUG=32 pdfetex 06a-amcoh.texi

to get more information on where files are sought.

I am not very familiar with how TeX looks for files but another thing
to look into is whether an "ls-R" file is up to date.  Look at the contents
of /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R file if it exists and check that texinfo.tex
is listed there.