[OS X TeX] Using \usepgfplotslibrary{external}

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Aug 4, 2016, at 9:09 AM, Martin Bergren <martin.berggren at cs.umu.se> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 04 Aug 2016, at 15:57, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Aug 4, 2016, at 7:56 AM, Martin Bergren <martin.berggren at cs.umu.se> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 04 Aug 2016, at 14:52, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Aug 4, 2016, at 7:22 AM, Martin Bergren <martin.berggren at cs.umu.se> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would like to be able to use
>>>>> 
>>>>> \usepgfplotslibrary{external}
>>>>> 
>>>>> for pgfplots, which apparently should be able to store the pgfplots or tikz figures as pdfs to shorten latexing time. The problem seem to be write18. 
>>>>> Is there a way around it?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Martin Berggren
>>>> 
>>>> Howdy,
>>>> 
>>>> Assuming you are using TeXShop:
>>>> 
>>>> One thing you can use is the sepdflatexmk engine. This is set up to use latexmk so that all processing through bibtex/biber and makeindex is taken care of if necessary and the pdflatex has the --shell-escape flag set. To use it simply place the line
>>>> 
>>>> % !TEX TS-program = sepdflatexmk
>>>> 
>>>> at the top of your file and then typeset the document by simply using Typeset->Typeset (Cmd-T).
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> But this is not a bibtex/biber and makeindex issue. This is about pgfplots,  which I think is running (in my case) lualatex in the background to produce the plots.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> 
>>> Martin Berggren
>> 
>> Howdy,
>> 
>> If it's really using lualatex you need to somehow have it load the luatex85 package and the shellesc package under lualatex. I don't know if your initial file is run under lualatex but you might try to include
>> 
>> \ifx\directlua\@undefined
>> \else
>> \RequirePackage{luatex85}
>> \RequirePackage{shellesc}
>> \fi
>> 
>> before the \documentclass command. Otherwise you need to see how to have that included in the lualatex call.
>> 
>> I think tikz-fct uses gnuplot and, assuming you have gnuplot in your PATH, using the shell escape provided by the sepdflatexmk engine should do the job.
> 
> No, luatex is not the issue (same problem with pdftex), and I don’t think this is a gnuplot issue either. The error I get is the following:
> 
> Package tikz Error: Sorry, the system call 'lualatex -halt-on-error -interact
> ion=batchmode -jobname "portoptreport1-figure0" "\def\tikzexternalrealjob{porto
> ptreport1}\input{portoptreport1}"' did NOT result in a usable output file 'port
> optreport1-figure0' (expected one of .pdf:.jpg:.jpeg:.png:). Please verify that
>  you have enabled system calls. For pdflatex, this is 'pdflatex -shell-escape'.
>  Sometimes it is also named 'write 18' or something like that. Or maybe the com
> mand simply failed? Error messages can be found in 'portoptreport1-figure0.log'
> . If you continue now, I'll try to typeset the picture. 
> 
> That’s why I in my first post said that it seems to be a write18 issue. To me it seems like lualatex (or pdflatex)  is supposed to run as a system command to produce the picture files. 
> 
> (The point with the  \usepgfplotslibrary{external} command is that tikz and pgfplot should not need to interpret the figures each time but instead produce a pdf-file, save it to a subdirectory, and use that in order to speed up the process).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Martin Berggren

Howdy,

Pretty confusing message. It says it can't get output from a lulatex command (which doesn't contain --shell-escape --- and even then it would need to include those packages since luatex in TL2016 does system calls through a different mechanism, hence the addition of the luatex85 and shellesc packages) and then talks about pdflatex --shell-escape. The sepdflatex engine in TeXShop does call pdflatex with --shell-escape but has no control over any internal call to lualatex.

I'd suggest putting the question on Stack Exchange, <http://tex.stackexchange.com>, which is monitored by many experienced folks.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)