Re: Output to directory patch

[Ikumi Keita]

Hi Al,

>>>>> Al Haji-Ali <abdo.haji.ali@gmail.com> writes:
> Implement `--output-directory` options in tex tools. This requires a
> minimal change to TeX-master-file which is ostensibly an automatic
> version of what you suggested above.

I understand your aim, but my concern here are reliability and
robustness of `TeX-master-file' and `TeX-region-file'. They are at the
central part of AUCTeX, so it's difficult to incorporate changes which
have possibility to make them unstable. I think that AUCTeX should only
accept modification of `TeX-{master,region}-file' which are proved to be
robust.

But this is just my personal opinion and other maintainers might have
different perspective. Discussions are welcome.

>> I suppose that (1)-(4) would be almost inevitable to implement reliably
>> the output-diretory feature. In addtion, they would gain another
>> advantage of being free of complication discussed below.
>> 
> Hmm.. I don't think the complications I talked about in TeX-command
> and TeX-save-document are a result of the patch implementation but
> rather are a result of these functions accepting file and
> file-function arguments instead of calling the relevant functions
> (like TeX-active-master) but not passing the file-function down to
> other functions.

I don't understand your points well. It seems to me that it's almost
enough to make `TeX-get-command-filename' supply 'TeX-output-dir', if
non-nil, in the suitable position of the return value when `extension'
is one of the output extensions. In that way, we won't need either
(1) introducing `TeX-command-file-function' variable
(2) extending `TeX-save-document' to accept function as its argument
(Well, maybe even calling `TeX-active-master' is unnecessary.)
What am I missing?

I think that the proposed implementation for `TeX-save-document' and
codes involving `TeX-command-file-function' are not easy to read, and am
afraid that they could become obstacles for maintainability.

Regards,
Ikumi Keita