Re: [AUCTeX] showing xdvi messages

[Ralf Angeli]

* Werner LEMBERG (2005-12-27) writes:

>> Currently it is not.  The viewer is started by means of
>> `TeX-run-discard' which discards the process output, see
>> `TeX-command-list'.  Formerly `TeX-run-silent' was used which would
>> generally allow for the output to be gathered and shown, but this
>> did not work with xdvi detaching itself from the terminal in case
>> source specials were used.  I played a bit with
>> `process-connection-type' and when this is set to nil,
>> `TeX-run-silent' can be used with source specials.  But with this
>> setting the xdvi process dies as soon as font creation comes into
>> play.  I am running out of options ...
>
> Thanks for the information.  What about communication via sockets or
> files?  Note that I'm a complete layman w.r.t. inter-process
> communication -- maybe I'm talking nonsense.

If you are a layman you likely know more about this stuff than me. (c:

IMO we should stick with the tools Emacs already offers before trying
to use something like sockets (Is that even possible from Lisp?) or
files.  And Emacs is offering `call-process' and `start-process'.

I tried to debug why `start-process' (i.e. `TeX-run-silent') fails
when `process-connection-type' is nil, xdvi is started with source
specials enabled and has to create fonts.  During debugging a PK file
was actually created and an xdvi window showed up as soon as `vfork'
was called in `create_process'.  But this window died as soon as I
tried to access the page before the first page or after the last page.
That means after the window was displayed I hit SPC until the last
page was displayed and upon typing SPC again the window disappeared.
Normally xdvi would beep in that case.  And if xdvi is started via
`TeX-run-shell' it prints stuff like "xdvi: First page of DVI file"
(probably to stdout).  Maybe xdvi aborts because it cannot write to
stdout?

-- 
Ralf