[xml/sgml-pkgs] Bug#339806: Problems with db2latex and current TeX distributions: \pdfoutput

[Frank Küster]

Dear maintainers of db2latex,

db2latex does not work properly with teTeX 3.0 (released in February
this year and included in many operating system distributions now) and
TeXLive 2005 (released this fall): It always produces PDF instead of DVI
files. 

The reason is that these TeX distributions use pdfetex as the engine
behind latex *and* pdflatex, pdfetex can produce DVI and PDF output.
But the tests in db2latex that try to detect whether PDF or DVI output
were buggy from the beginning (although not invented by you, for sure),
and now fail:  They test whether \pdfoutput is *defined*, and assume PDF
output if yes, while in pdfitex it is always defined, but set to 0 if
DVI output is wanted.  Even worse, the LaTeX files created by db2latex
*set* \pdfoutput to 1 if they find that it is defined, and therefore
always produce PDF files.

This problem makes db2latex unusable in Debian (and many other
distributions), and breaks out automatic building of package
documentation in some cases.  Therefore we need a fix rather quickly,
and would be glad if you would implement this:  The maintainers of the
package within Debian are very busy currently, and I'm only the teTeX
maintainer who doesn't know anything about sgml or xml or whatever
language db2latex uses.  What I can tell you is how LaTeX files produced
by db2latex should look like, there is an easy and a thorough solution:

- the easy one is to load ifpdf.sty with \usepackage{ifpdf}, and use the
  conditional

\ifpdf
  % code for PDF output
\else
  % code for DVI output
\fi

  (the else branch can be left out, \fi is mandatory)

- the thorough one would be to check whether such a discrimination is
  needed at all.  For example, such a check is frequently used for
  hyperref, but in fact this package has output format tests built in
  and does not need to be called with an output driver option except in
  very special cases.

  If you want to go that way, feel free to ask me on
  debian-tetex-maint at lists.debian.org which of your checks is
  necessary. 
 
Many thanks in advance, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer