[OS X TeX] TeXShop and files on a network

[Stephen Moye]

On Oct 4, 2006, at 5:16 PM, Ross Moore wrote:

> Hello Stephen,
>
> On 04/10/2006, at 10:35 PM, Stephen Moye wrote:
>
>> We are using TeXShop on files that exist on a (Mac OS X) server.  
>> If we close the document and open it again, and then TeX the file,  
>> the TeXing stops with a warning that the log file is in use. What  
>> is happening, and what can we do about it?
>
> Are you saying that you make TeX jobs run in response to requests
> submitted via a web-page ?

No. I don't think I said anything about "TeX jobs run in response to  
requests
submitted via a web-page."

>
> Whenever you do this kind of thing, you need to make sure that you
> do not get multiple simultaneous requests to process the same job.
> Thus each request should first *copy* the job to a unique directory,
> then process it in there. Serve up the resulting PDF file to your  
> client,
> then clean up by deleting the complete directory.
> Of course you'll need to ensure that something sensible is done,
> in the case where there is a TeX error causing the job to fail.
>
>
> If, on the other hand, you are simply preparing PDFs for later
> serving as static files, then there is no need to prepare them
> within a shared directory. Just prepare the jobs somewhere else
> and copy the results into place when you know they are perfect.
> This way you can keep the .log files with the sources, so that
> you can examine their content, should unforeseen problems occur
> and you need the .log to get clues about the cause.
>
> This is perhaps safer too, as the constant use by the web-server
> means that the server-disk is more likely to be the one that
> may crash with data-loss.
>
>
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Stephen Moye

What I am saying is that we have TeX documents on a server. One person
might create the original document, and another person might make  
corrections
on that file. When the first person, the one who created the file,
closes that file and quits TeXShop, the second person is not able to  
open and TeX the file because
TeX(Shop) complains that the log file is in use. We don't want to have
multiple versions of the file in multiple places at the same time. We  
put the files
on the server and edit them there to avoid the problems of version  
control. The question is, why does
TeXShop think that the log file is still in use when the person who  
is editing
the file tries to TeX it.

Could it be a permissions problem? Could it be that the person who is  
TeXing
the file 'owns' the log file so that other users do not have access  
to it? But
that would, I should have thought, have given a different error.

Puzzled.

SGM

------------------------- 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 Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/