ARLATEX
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 2022-10-04
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NAME
arlatex - archive a number of ancillary LaTeX files into a master
.tex file
SYNOPSIS
arlatex
[--outfile=filename.tex]
--document=filename.tex
filename
...
arlatex
--version
arlatex
--help
DESCRIPTION
arlatex is an archiving program like shar, tar, zip, etc.
Unlike those other archivers, however, arlatex is designed
specifically for use with LaTeX. arlatex takes the name of a
master .tex file and a number of ancillary files used by that
master file (e.g., .tex, .sty, .cls, and .eps files).
From these, arlatex outputs a single file that, when it's run
through latex, both regenerates the ancillary files and compiles
the document into a .dvi file.
arlatex has a few advantages over other archiving programs:
- •
-
The .tex files produced by arlatex are in a plain-text format.
They are therefore perfectly portable and trivial to e-mail to
colleagues.
- •
-
arlatex needs only LaTeX to run. There is no dependence on any
external tools.
- •
-
There is no explicit extraction step. As the generated document is
run through latex, it extracts the ancillary files and builds the
document in the same step. The user running latex may not even
notice that additional files are being produced.
arlatex works by writing a number of "\begin{filecontents*}" ...
"\end{filecontents*}" blocks to the output file, followed by the
contents of the master file. (In fact, any LaTeX comments at the
beginning of the master file are hoisted to the top of the generated
file. This enables the author to draw attention, if so desired, to
the fact that ancillary files will be generated.) The
"filecontents*" environment, part of standard LaTeX2e, writes its
contents verbatim to a specified file.
OPTIONS
- --version
-
Output the arlatex script's version number.
- --help
-
Output brief arlatex usage information.
- --document=.tex file
-
Specify the master document. The output from arlatex is this file
with all of the other files named on the command line prepended to it.
Note that "--document" is a mandatory parameter; arlatex will
abort with an error message if "--document" is not specified.
- --outfile=.tex file
-
Specify the output file. The output file looks just like the master
document, but with a number of "filecontents*" environments preceding
the "\documentclass" line. If "--outfile" is not specified, output
will be written to the standard output device.
EXAMPLES
Suppose you have a paper called paper.tex that loads a custom
package with "\usepackage{mypackage}". You want to submit the paper
to a conference, but you want to be absolutely certain that
mypackage.sty doesn't get lost as your paper is shuttled from
person to person. Here's how arlatex can be of use:
arlatex --document=paper.tex mypackage.sty --outfile=paper-submit.tex
When paper-submit.tex is processed with latex, it builds just
like the original paper.tex, except that it additionally creates a
mypackage.sty in the current directory:
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3.1)
(paper-submit.tex
LaTeX2e <1999/12/01> patch level 1
Babel <v3.6Z> and hyphenation patterns for american, french, german,
ngerman, italian, nohyphenation, loaded.
LaTeX Warning: Writing file `./mypackage.sty'.
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 1999/09/10 v1.4a Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/size12.clo)) (mypackage.sty)
.
.
.
As another example, here's how you could bundle together all of the
files needed to build a large document for longevity:
arlatex --document=thesis.tex abstract.tex introduction.tex
background.tex approach.tex experiments.tex relatedwork.tex
conclusions.tex before.eps after.eps fast.eps slow.eps
podunkUthesis.cls --outfile=thesis-all.tex
As the number of files to archive together increases it becomes more
cumbersome to run arlatex manually. Fortunately, using arlatex
with bundledoc is straightforward. bundledoc finds all of the
files needed to build the document, and arlatex combines them into
a single file. The following are examples of the "bundle:" line you
might use in a bundledoc configuration file:
- Unix:
-
bundle: (arlatex --document=$BDBASE.tex $BDINPUTS \
--outfile=$BDBASE-all.tex)
- Windows:
-
bundle: arlatex --document=%BDBASE%.tex %BDINPUTS% \
--outfile=%BDBASE%-all.tex
See the bundledoc documentation for more information.
CAVEATS
arlatex makes use of LaTeX's "filecontents*" environment. It
passes "filecontents*" the "overwrite" option to indicate that
existing files with the same name should be overwritten. Be
forewarned that building the generated file will overwrite the files
used to create it.
It is best to avoid bundling binary files (e.g., included graphics)
with arlatex. These typically do not extract cleanly.
SEE ALSO
bundledoc(1), latex(1), shar(1), tar(1), zip(1)
AUTHOR
Scott Pakin, scott+bdoc@pakin.org
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OPTIONS
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- CAVEATS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- AUTHOR
-
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Time: 00:22:41 GMT, March 29, 2024