Validation of PDF output fails

[ascherer]

I have noticed on macOS with Adobe Acrobat Reader that output from CWEB 5.0 with make all PDF=pdf fullmanual fails to display any “starred sections”. Now I try to find the cause of the error with CWEB 4.8 (current) and CWEB 3.64c (reference).

Use 3-Heights PDF Validator Online Tool on the CWEB sources (plus user manual).

CWEB 3.64c

CWEB 4.8

CWEB 5.0

[ascherer]

Another online validator produces long error reports

• for PDFTeX output common.pdf
• for DVIPDFM output common-plain-dvipdfm.pdf

[ascherer]

The “unexpected token” came from an \ifpdf block outside of \ifpdftex. In the olden days, \pdftextrue did not also mean \pdftrue, but in CWEB 5.0, iftex.sty sets \pdftrue for the PDFTeX engine if \pdfoutput=1 (the default).

[ascherer]

Note that this bug was introduced in version 3.64 almost twenty years ago!

[ascherer]

Here's the fix in CWEB 4.9/5.0.

[ascherer]

And here's the fix in CWEB 4.9/5.0 for the incorrect Last keys.

[ascherer]

And here's the fix for CTWILL 5.0.