Using a macro makes pdfetex quits and exits with bad status

[Christopher Dimech]

These are problems everybody will have.  Don't you think that the
fact that you concede non-familiarity with how TeX works, is even
more of a minefield for the user who is going through great
efforts to use it.  Ultimately, its value is determined by the
worth in the eyes of those who use it.

Right now the biggest problem with human beings is that they
think this is important, this is not important, this person is
great, this person is no good, this is ok, this is not ok, this
is god, this is devil.  It is half a life, because people think
this is not important.

I will introspect the comments, but then we got to document what we
learn here, in the manual or installation guide.  Else all this
bother will be for nothing.  Only if this is important should we
invest our time in it.

> Sent: Friday, June 25, 2021 at 8:54 AM
> From: "Gavin Smith" <gavinsmith0123@gmail.com>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org>, help-texinfo@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Using a macro makes pdfetex quits and exits with bad status
>
> I don't appreciate your comparing me with other posters to this list; it's
> tiring and means I have less patience for responding to your queries.  The
> other posters have tried to help you and you should be grateful.
>
> Comments below.
>
> On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 10:05:24PM +0200, Christopher Dimech wrote:
> >
> > Let't try again
> >
> > This is what I have done
> >
> >  2001  cd /home/hagbard/Admir/source/texinfo
> >  2002  ls
> >  2003  rm configure
> >  2004  ./autogen.sh
> >
> >  2000  cd /home/hagbard/Admir/build/texinfo
> >  2001  ../../source/texinfo/configure
> >  2002  make
> >  2003  sudo make install
> >
> > Then I did
> >
> > sudo make TEXMF=/usr/local/share/texmf install-tex
>
> This looks all correct.
>
> > Here is the consequence
> >
> > sudo make TEXMF=/usr/local/share/texmf install-tex
> > cd doc && make TEXMF=/usr/local/share/texmf install-tex
> > make[1]: Entering directory '/home/hagbard/Admir/build/texinfo/doc'
> > test -n "/usr/local/share/texmf" || (echo "TEXMF must be set." >&2; exit 1)
> > /bin/bash /home/hagbard/Admir/source/texinfo/build-aux/install-sh -d 
> > /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/generic/epsf
> > /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/texinfo.tex 
> > /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/texinfo.tex
> > /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/texinfo-ja.tex 
> > /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/texinfo-ja.tex
> > /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/epsf.tex 
> > /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/generic/epsf/epsf.tex
> > for f in txi-ca.tex txi-cs.tex txi-de.tex txi-en.tex txi-es.tex txi-fi.tex 
> > txi-fr.tex txi-hu.tex txi-is.tex txi-it.tex txi-ja.tex txi-nb.tex 
> > txi-nl.tex txi-nn.tex txi-pl.tex txi-pt.tex txi-ru.tex txi-sr.tex 
> > txi-tr.tex txi-uk.tex; do \
> >   /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../../../source/texinfo/doc/$f 
> > /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/$f; done
> > make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/hagbard/Admir/build/texinfo/doc'
> >
> > Finally I run texi2pdf,
> >
> > hagbard@fuckup:
> > + ~/01cuneus/tdr/06ch
> > texi2pdf 06a-amcoh.texi
> > /usr/local/bin/texi2dvi: texinfo.tex appears to be broken.
> > This may be due to the environment variable TEX set to something
> > other than (plain) tex, a corrupt texinfo.tex file, or
> > to tex itself simply not working.
> > This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.18 (TeX Live 2017/Debian) 
> > (preloaded format=etex)
> >  restricted \write18 enabled.
> > entering extended mode
> > (./txiversion.tex
> > ! I can't find file `texinfo.tex'.
> > l.1 \input texinfo.tex
> >                        @bye
> > (Press Enter to retry, or Control-D to exit)
> > Please type another input file name:
> > ! Emergency stop.
> > l.1 \input texinfo.tex
> >                        @bye
> > No pages of output.
> > Transcript written on txiversion.log.
> > /usr/local/bin/texi2dvi: quitting.
>
> The first thing I would do is run
>
> pdfetex 06a-amcoh.texi
>
> and see if the same error occurs.   If it does, you need to investigate
> TeX's search list for files.  You could try running
>
> export TEXINPUTS=/usr/local/share/texmf:$TEXINPUTS
>
> and running pdfetex again.  See Info node "(kpathsea)Path sources".
>
> Apparently you can also run
>
> KPATHSEA_DEBUG=32 pdfetex 06a-amcoh.texi
>
> to get more information on where files are sought.
>
> I am not very familiar with how TeX looks for files but another thing
> to look into is whether an "ls-R" file is up to date.  Look at the contents
> of /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R file if it exists and check that texinfo.tex
> is listed there.
>
>
>