ctanify - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

ctanify - Prepare a package for upload to CTAN

SYNOPSIS

ctanify [--pkgname=string] [--[no]auto] [--tdsonly=filespec ...] [--[no]unixify]
[--[no]skip] [--tdsdir=dirname ...] [--tex=macro_pkg] [--[no]miscify] filespec[=dirname]
...

ctanify [--help]

ctanify [--version]

DESCRIPTION

ctanify is intended for developers who have a LaTeX package that they want to distribute
via the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN). Given a list of filenames, ctanify
creates a tarball (a .tar.gz file) with the files laid out in CTAN's preferred structure.
The tarball additionally contains a ZIP (.zip) file with copies of all files laid out in
the standard TeX Directory Structure (TDS), which facilitates inclusion of the package in
the TeX Live distribution.

OPTIONS

ctanify accepts the following command-line options:

-h, --help
Output basic usage information and exit.

-V, --version
Output ctanify's version number and exit.

-p string, --pkgname=string
Specify explicitly a package name. Normally, ctanify uses the base name of the first
.ins or .sty file listed as the package name. The package name forms the base name
of the tarball that ctanify produces.

--noauto
Do not automatically add files to the tarball. Normally, ctanify automatically
includes all files mentioned in a .ins file.

-t filespec, --tdsonly=filespec
Specify a subset of the files named on the command line to include only in the TDS
ZIP file, not in the CTAN package directory. Wildcards are allowed (quoted if
necessary), and --tdsonly can be used multiple times on the same command line.

At least one filename must be specified on the command line. ctanify automatically places
files in the TDS tree based on their extension, but this can be overridden by specifying
explicitly a target TDS directory using the form filespec=dirname. Wildcards are allowed
for the filespec (quoted if necessary).

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS

The following options are unlikely to be necessary in ordinary usage. They are provided
for special circumstances that may arise.

-d dirname, --tdsdir=dirname
Instead of creating a tarball for CTAN, merely create the package TDS tree rooted in
directory dirname.

-T macro_pkg, --tex=macro_pkg
Assert that the files being packaged for CTAN target a TeX macro package other than
LaTeX. Some common examples of macro_pkg are "generic", "plain", and "context".

-nou, --no-unixify
Store text files unmodified instead of converting their end-of-line character to Unix
format (a single linefeed character with no carriage-return character), even though
CTAN prefers receiving all files with Unix-format end-of-line characters.

-nok, --no-skip
Force ctanify to include files such as Unix hidden files, Emacs backup files, and
version-control metadata files, all of which CTAN dislikes receiving.

-m, --miscify
Rename directories containing a single file to "misc". (For example, rename
"tex/latex/mypackage/mypackage.sty" to "tex/latex/misc/mypackage.sty".) This was
common practice in the past but is now strongly discouraged.

DIAGNOSTICS

"Failed to copy filename (No such file or directory)"
This message is typically caused by a .ins file that generates filename but that has
not already been run through tex or latex to actually produce filename. ctanify does
not automatically run tex or latex; this needs to be done manually by the user. See
"CAVEATS" for more information.

"Modified filename to use Unix line endings (use --no-unixify to prevent this)"
For consistency, CTAN stores all text files with Unix-style line endings (a single
linefeed character with no carriage-return character). To help in this effort,
ctanify automatically replaces non-Unix-style line endings. The preceding merely
message notifies the user that he should not be alarmed to see a different size for
filename in the tarball versus the original filename on disk (which ctanify never
modifies). If there's a good reason to preserve the original line endings (and there
rarely is), the --no-unixify option can be used to prevent ctanify from altering any
files when storing them in the tarball.

"Excluding filename (use --no-skip to force inclusion)"
ctanify normally ignores files--even when specified explicitly on the command
line--that CTAN prefers not receiving. These include files whose names start with
"." (Unix hidden files), end in "~" (Emacs automatic backups), or that come from a
CVS or .svn directory (version-control metadata files). If there's a good reason to
submit such files to CTAN (and there rarely is), the --no-skip option can be used to
prevent ctanify from ignoring them.

"CTAN prefers having only PDF documentation (re: filename)"
Because of the popularity of the PDF format, CTAN wants to have as much documentation
as possible distributed in PDF. The preceding message asks the user to replace any
PostScript or DVI documentation with PDF if possible. (ctanify will still include
PostScript and DVI documentation in the tarball; the preceding message is merely a
polite request.)

"Not including filename in the TDS tree (unknown extension)"
ctanify places files in the TDS tree based on a table of file extensions. For
example, all .sty files are placed in tex/latex/package-name. If ctanify does not
know where to put a file it does not put it anywhere. See the last paragraph of
"OPTIONS" for an explanation of how to specify explicitly a file's target location in
the TDS tree. For common file extensions that happen to be absent from ctanify's
table, consider also notifying ctanify's author at the address shown below under
"AUTHOR".

EXAMPLES

The Common Case
Normally, all that's needed is to tell ctanify the name of the .ins file (or .sty if the
package does not use DocStrip) and the prebuilt documentation, if any:

$ ctanify mypackage.ins mypackage.pdf README

490347 mypackage.tar.gz

1771 mypackage/README
15453 mypackage/mypackage.dtx
1957 mypackage/mypackage.ins
277683 mypackage/mypackage.pdf
246935 mypackage.tds.zip

1771 doc/latex/mypackage/README
277683 doc/latex/mypackage/mypackage.pdf
15453 source/latex/mypackage/mypackage.dtx
1957 source/latex/mypackage/mypackage.ins
1725 tex/latex/mypackage/mypackage.sty

ctanify outputs the size in bytes of the resulting tarball, each file within it, and each
file within the contained ZIP file. In the preceding example, notice how ctanify
automatically performed all of the following operations:

· including mypackage.dtx (found by parsing mypackage.ins) in both the mypackage
directory and the ZIP file,

· including mypackage.sty (found by parsing mypackage.ins) in the ZIP file but, because
it's a generated file, not in the mypackage directory, and

· placing all files into appropriate TDS directories (documentation, source, main
package) within the ZIP file.

Consider what it would take to manually produce an equivalent mypackage.tar.gz file.
ctanify is definitely a simpler, quicker alternative.

Advanced Usage
ctanify assumes that PostScript files are documentation and therefore stores them under
doc/latex/package-name/ in the TDS tree within the ZIP File. Suppose, however, that a
LaTeX package uses a set of PostScript files to control dvips's output. In this case,
ctanify must be told to include those PostScript files in the package directory, not the
documentation directory.

$ ctanify mypackage.ins "mypackage*.ps=tex/latex/mypackage"

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