[Templates] Re: Latex filter enhancements

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>From: Andrew Ford <A.Ford@xxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx>

>I am just delving into Template::Filters to add an enhancement to the 
>latex/pdf filter, namely to rerun latex/pdflatex if there are undefined 
>references after the first run. 
Yes, I have also used CGI and TT with latex filter in a 
similiar scenario, and the enhancements you listed below 
would be very welcome ;)

>* set the TEXINPUTS environment variable to include the directory the 
>template was found in, so that file inclusion (in latex) picks up files 
>in that directory (the template is copied to a temporary directory and 
>latex is run in that directory so that temporary files can be cleaned up 
>after the template has been filtered).
Or perhaps a more generic mechanism for setting arbitrary 
environment variable. Also of value would be a possibility 
to set some TeX variables, like \graphicspath{} from 
graphics package, but I do not see a good way to implement 
this.

[...]
>"tmpdir" to specify a 'temporary' directory for debugging -- this would 
>not be deleted by tt2 after processing the template, so that one could 
>go in and sort out latex problems
Also sometimes I wished for an 'output_errors' option 
which would output TeX errors to a given file (or instead 
of normal template output), so that it can be easier 
obtained remotely.
A warning when the filter output is written to a text-mode 
stream would be useful for a newbies, who (like me) forget 
to put binmode=>1 in process directive.

>I am still at the planning stage for this and would 
>welcome comments and suggestions.
I am not a TT developer, but from the general spirit of TT 
I would suggest to investigate the idea of generic 
Template::Filter::External.
Such a filter could set environment varialbes, write 
per-filter text to a temp file, execute one or more 
external programs, than read their output and return it as 
a filtered text.
After that, latex filter can be implemented as a special 
case. Another application which immediately comes on mind 
is DocBook and other similiar document generators. Still 
other is an auto-packaging feature for generating archived 
downloads on demand.
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