[OS X TeX] etex versions

[Gerben Wierda]

> Hello Gerben and other texperts
>
> in a previous tetex installation I had, etex used .efmt as
> suffix for its formats, but in my present installation it
> uses .fmt.
>
> I would like to know how a script in the most reliable way
> can query the installation for which of the two behaviours
> occurs.  I expect to do this by regexping the output of
>
>    etex --version
>
> which starts like
>
>    pdfeTeX 3.141592-1.20a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.3)
>    kpathsea version 3.5.3
>
> My question is which of these three version numbers is the
> best to use for comparison,

Web2C

> and at which version number
> did the design change?

I think (but I am uncertain) that it was from 7.5.2 to 7.5.3.

> Gerben, this is a hint: it would be very useful if your
> tex web page could provide pointers to exact change logs.
> In fact, two levels of change logs are often required: one
> technical with all internal details, and one user-level
> change log where at least important changes like
> "etex is now just a wrapper for pdfetex" can be looked
> up quickly.  (Far too often an upgrade of tex installation
> breaks something for some users, and often these upgrades
> are forced upon the user by system administrators or
> hardware upgrades, etc., and easy access to the relevant
> information would help a lot to spot the cause of the
> problems.)

It is beyond my meager means to keep my own log of issues. That would
require some editing work. But I'll look into automatic copying the main
ChangeLogs from TeX Live for the binaries in some location. Still, that
ChangeLog might not be useful for many and highly computer science
technical in nature. No, thinking about it I think this is a separate
editorial activity for which the time lacks.

I do copy the ChangeLog for the teTeX texmf tree and maintain one for my
own tree in the i-Package where they can be inspected.

G

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