[OS X TeX] Looking for inline mpost example

[Will Robertson]

On 25 Dec 2004, at 5:38 AM, Maarten Sneep wrote:

> The Metafun manual (from the pragma-ade website) has some pointers to 
> packages that do this as well. Be aware though that your document now 
> becomes a multi-stage rocket: Compile latex, write out metapost 
> sources, call metapost, call latex once more to include the compiled 
> metapost (and write out any changes in the metapost code). There are 
> constructs conceivable that would require several more stages.

Would it be conceivable for a TeX-variant to be able to perform this on 
the fly? That is, just as the metapost code is reached in the 
typesetting stage, this TeX-like program would fire off mpost to 
compile the drawing if it weren't already available then continue with 
the typesetting once the image was available?

In fact, wouldn't that be possible now with \iffileexists and \write18? 
(I haven't touched this stuff before, so I have no real idea, though.)

(Of course, you'd need to have --shell-escape enabled.)

W

--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>