R help - Aug 2021 - A glitch (???) in tools::texi2pf.

On Sat, 28 Aug 2021, Rolf Turner wrote:
> I have found that tools::texi2pf() ignores changes to the *.bib file
> unless the *.bbl file is removed prior to re-running tools::texi2pdf().
This is how texi2pdf (or actually texi2dvi) from texinfo behaves. This is 
likely what tools::texi2pdf calles in your setup anyway. In short, 
texi2dvi considers the .bbl as input files to the .tex and does not remove 
them if they are available prior to calling texi2dvi.

Alternatives:

(1) You can always re-run everything. Then simply start with a clean 
directory and always use tools::texi2pdf(..., clean = TRUE). This cleans 
up all the files it has produced (except the .pdf). But it will preserve 
files left in the directory from previous runs.

(2) You can detect upstream changes, e.g., based on timestamps etc. Then 
the traditional approach would be to use a Makefile.

Best,
Z
> I have constructed a minimal reproducible example which is contained
> in the attached file "mreprex.txt".
>
> This *.txt file should be split into two files, mreprex.tex and
> mreprex.bib.  (I wasn't sure whether *.tex and *.bib files would make
> it through to the list.)
>
> After doing the splitting, start R, execute
>
> tools::texi2pf("mreprex.tex")
>
> and view the resulting mreprex.pdf file.  Then edit mreprex.bib
> and change (e.g.) the version number from "0.0-21" to
"0.0-22".
>
> Re-run tools::texi2pf("mreprex.tex") and view mreprex.pdf.  You
will
> see that it hasn't changed; the version number cited is still given as
> 0.0-21.  Now remove mreprex.bbl, re-run
tools::texi2pf("mreprex.tex")
> and view mreprex.pdf.  You will see that the version number is given as
> 0.0-22 as it should be.
>
> Should this be considered a bug?  If so, what is the appropriate way of
> drawing this to the attention of those who have the power to fix it?
>
> Thanks.
>
> cheers,
>
> Rolf Turner
>
> -- 
> Honorary Research Fellow
> Department of Statistics
> University of Auckland
> Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
>

On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 09:47:03 +0200
Achim Zeileis <Achim.Zeileis at uibk.ac.at> wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2021, Rolf Turner wrote:
> 
> > I have found that tools::texi2pf() ignores changes to the *.bib file
> > unless the *.bbl file is removed prior to re-running
> > tools::texi2pdf().
> 
> This is how texi2pdf (or actually texi2dvi) from texinfo behaves.
> This is likely what tools::texi2pdf calles in your setup anyway. In
> short, texi2dvi considers the .bbl as input files to the .tex and
> does not remove them if they are available prior to calling texi2dvi.
> 
> Alternatives:
> 
> (1) You can always re-run everything. Then simply start with a clean 
> directory and always use tools::texi2pdf(..., clean = TRUE). This
> cleans up all the files it has produced (except the .pdf). But it
> will preserve files left in the directory from previous runs.
> 
> (2) You can detect upstream changes, e.g., based on timestamps etc.
> Then the traditional approach would be to use a Makefile.
> 
> Best,
> Z
Thanks.  I guess you're saying that it's a feature, not a bug. :-)

Well it's a feature that I intensely dislike, but that cuts no ice I'm
sure, and I'll just have to cope with it. I can easily build a local
function that will remove *.bbl before invoking tools::texi2pdf(),
and use that, rather than calling tools::texi2pdf() directly.

However I *really* believe that this is a bad feature, and is a Trap
For Young Players.  Hardly anyone knows what a *.bbl is or is for.
Users would expect that changing the *.bib file would change the
reference list in the output.  (I.e. that texi2pdf() would re-run
bibtex "under the bonnet", as the user would do if processing from the
OS command line rather than applying texi2pdf() from R.)

I wonder how many papers in the R Journal have errors in their
reference lists due to the fact that authors corrected the *.bib file,
reprocessed using texi2pdf() and did not notice that the error they
corrected had *not* been corrected in the *.pdf output?

cheers,

Rolf

-- 
Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276