latexfileinfo-pkgs
Displaying Metadata (“Info”) of LaTeX Source Files

 — a comparison of packages available from CTAN

[ intro | table | \GetFileInfo etc. | \listfiles etc. | rcs/svn | thanks ]  [ reload ]

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0 Introduction (with links to sections)

For LaTeX source files, it is recommended to start them with LaTeX command (after \NeedsTeXFormat). Their trailing optional argument can provide the most recent Here we are listing and comparing TeX packages available from CTAN that make use of this information.

The document especially describes five packages of my own, including interrelations and dependencies, and thus extends their documentations; see table below for them. An asterisk* near a package name indicates that the package is not mine; so what I tell about it may be wrong or bad … (please let me know via form, or should I add something?) ...

We have the cases of

  1. displaying single file info (\GetFileInfo ...)
  2. listing infos of several files (\listfiles etc.)
and for each
  1. access by LaTeX (1 · 2)
  2. access by external program (1 · 2).
Related subjects are using
  1. revision control systems and
  2. modification time according to pdfTeX.
A tabular overview of the first two case distinctions:

just using LaTeX  using external program
single file • doc*                (Frank Mittelbach)
• zwgetfdate*         (Zdeněk Wagner)
• readprov
• latexfileversion*  (Harald Harders)
• ltxfileinfo*                   (Wybo Dekker)
• typeoutfileinfo
file list • classlist*            (Heiko Oberdiek)
• dateiliste*          (Paul Ebermann)
• longnamefilelist
• nicefilelist
• myfilist
• [ltxinput*                        (Jim Green)]
• [texlog-extract*       (Wybo Dekker)]

[ don’t really belong here … ]

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1 Access Single File Info

[ a:doc | readprov | zwgetfdate ]  [ b:latexfileversion | ltxfileinfo | typeoutfileinfo ]  [ c: filemod ]

a. Access in LaTeX Run

—originally for automatic inclusion of current revision date and version of a package in typesetting the latter’s documentation (“This document describes version … as of …”), but then …
doc*
zwgetfdate*
readprov

b. Screen Display Using External Program

—when you wonder whether the most recent version of a package or a chapter file is present …
latexfileversion*
ltxfileinfo*
typeoutfileinfo

c. Related, while different …

filemod*

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2 File Info List

This is about listing all files input in a LaTeX run, or ...

a. Create in LaTeX Run

[ LaTeX | classlist | dateiliste | longnamefilelist | myfilist | nicefilelist ]
latex*
classlist*
dateiliste*
longnamefilelist
nicefilelist
myfilist

b. Create by External Program

Hm, not so related, no infos (it seems), lists only; so, just “most related I could find” for this section ...
ltxinput*
texlog-extract*

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3 RCS/SVN

For revision control systems RCS and SVN, there are —sorry, I can’t tell more about them right now …

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Martin Münch, Moss (I wrote this for his question), and Rainer Schöpf! RCS stuff mainly has been stolen from Jürgen Fenn’s Topic Index of the TeX Catalogue.


* not mine

Last revised 2012-05-29 © Uwe Lück
(using blog.sty and monofill.sty)
License: LPPL 1.3c or later, author-maintained.

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