rlatex(1)

📦 version 1.0.0, in ubuntu jammy

✨ rlatex — NAME 💖

okay bestie, listen up, this is rlatex, and she's a wrapper — a little script whose whole job is to run LaTeX or jadeTeX over and over as many times as it takes. 🎀 That's the vibe. She lives in section 1 of the General Commands Manual, so when you type man 1 rlatex she's right there waiting for you. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

[env LATEXPRG=latex-binary ] rlatex [latex-document]

That's it. That's the whole spell. 🪄 Set an env var if you're feeling fancy, hand her a document if you have one, and let her cook. ✨

🦋 Description 🦋

So here's the tea: rlatex takes LaTeX, or literally any other LaTeX-based macro package — and when I say any, the ones it cares about most are jadetex, pdflatex, and pdfjadetex — and applies it to the document you gave her. 🫶

But here's the main character energy: she doesn't just run it once and dip. She runs it as many successive times as needed. 😤 Multiple passes. She's not leaving until the job is done done.

How does she know when she's done? She checks the output of a LaTeX pass, and if she spots certain specific strings — the ones that are basically the compiler yelling "girl I'm not finished yet" — she fires up a whole new pass. 🔁 Lowkey genius, no cap.

So the loop goes: run a pass, read what came out, see if it's giving "unfinished", run another pass. Repeat until everything is slayed. 💖

💀 Caveats 💀

⚠️ Real talk, bestie, this one has a catch.

This version is mostly tuned for jadetex. Which means if you're using pure LaTeX, it may cause some problems. 🙈 Not ideal, I know. The page literally says this ought to be fixed some day. So... it hasn't been. It's a known thing. She's aware. 😭

Just know what you're walking into, okay? 🫶

Copyright © 2001-2003 Alcove & Yann Dirson.

This rlatex is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2. 📜

She's also heavily derived from the doc/rlatex script inside the LILO source package, and that one is distributed under a BSD license. Fun detail: the original script does not mention its original author — mystery icon behavior, honestly. 🕵️♀️✨

And this documentation right here? Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1. 🎀

💜 Contact us 💜

rlatex is part of the sgml2x package, which is itself part of the AlcoveBook project. 🏠 The AlcoveBook project lives at this URL: http://www.alcove-labs.org/en/software/alcovebook/.

Wanna slide into the devs' DMs? Please use the AlcoveBook mailing lists — that's the move, bestie. Here's the link: https://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group_id=533. That's where developers and users actually hang out and talk. 💬

Got beef with a bug? Got a feature request? 👀 The list of bugs and feature requests is available through a Web interface, right here: https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?group_id=533. Please use it to submit problems and ideas. Don't just suffer in silence, that's not the vibe. 🌈

🌟 See also 🌟

All the cousins. Go say hi. 🧚

okay that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀 she's a multi-pass queen, she's tuned for jadetex, she's GPLv2 with a BSD glow-up from LILO, and she's out here signing off as rlatex(1) — section 1 of the General Commands Manual, AlcoveBook-era energy, copyright 2001-2003. go run her twice and think of me. 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from