[OS X TeX] Error: I can't write on file '(name)'

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 23.03.2007 um 05:40 schrieb Alain Schremmer:

> (2) As it happens, a friend came for dinner whose second language  
> is Unix. Before I could blink, he had carried out Voisin'  
> suggestion, i.e. added openout_any = r at the end of the file and  
> it works.

Is this really the only case of an openout statement? Now that you're  
no UNIX virgin anymore you could check this in Terminal with

	grep -n openout /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.cnf /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf/ 
web2c/texmf.cnf

or more precisely

	grep -n openout_any /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.cnf /usr/local/gwTeX/ 
texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf

(In both commands grep sees two file names. When it finds an  
occurence, it will also report the name of the file in which it found  
the search pattern. When only one file name is given, no file name is  
reported – because it's simple logic that grep can't find the pattern  
in a file which it does know and since the user and grep know in  
which file they looked up the pattern it's useless to repeat its  
name. Sometimes the name counts, for example when find is used to  
locate some file in some corner of the disk and then grep is used to  
determine whether a search pattern is contained in any of those files  
found. In such a case, or out of bigger curiosity, one can give grep  
a second file name with almost no content, to finish search at once: / 
dev/null.)

In case that no texmf.cnf had an openout statement it would have  
worked to simply add one by

	sudo echo "openout_any = r" >> /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf

The use of ``>>´´ is the important thing: it adds something to the  
previous contents at its end. If only one angle is used, the old  
contents is replaced by a new one ...

--
Greetings

   Pete

Time flies like an error -- but fruit flies like a banana!
                              (almost Groucho Marx)



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