[OS X TeX] Where does TeX look for files?

[André Bellaïche]

I have been told many times that tex looks for files in

- some special subdirectories in texlive/2008
- some special subdirectories in texlive/texmf-local
- your working directory, but NOT the subdirectories of the working directory

(suppose you are using TexLive 2008).

But I have also learn how to instruct TeX to look elsewhere in some cases:

- by using \graphicspath for graphic files
- by using \pdfmapfile for supplementary map files

Is there a similar way to instruct TeX to look for sty files, font files, etc. in a specified directory, not by changing the paths in some Unix way, but by means of a macro from inside the tex file you are typesetting?

André Bellaïche
Université Paris 7