hardwrap is incompatible with xelatex

[godbyk]

When attempting to compile a document with xelatex, I get the following error:

! Undefined control sequence.
l.48   \ifnum\pdfshellescape
                            >0\relax

We should probably account for this possibility.

[godbyk]

Per your XeTeX reference, it looks like \shellescape should be used if we're running XeTeX.

[wspr]

How strict do you need to be about requiring supplementary packages? We could use the pdftexcmds to provide a wrapper for these, or we could do the more complex

\@ifpackageloaded{pdftexcmds}{\RequirePackage{pdftexcmds}}{%
  % emulate pdftexcmds's wrapper for \pdfshellescape
}

(If we're going to those efforts, we should also add code for the existence of \shellescape and \pdfshellescape in the first place, although I think the latter has been around for long enough we'dn't need to for it.)

What do you think?

[godbyk]

If pdftexcmds is a fairly standard package (that is, it's supplied in all the major distributions) and it's contemporary to the versions of the distributions our package will appear in, then I see no reason not to use it.

I'm typically all for using existing packages when possible. The only downsides I've seen are that there are sometimes compatibility issues between packages and I've run into problems with requiring packages that are in newer distributions. (Apparently many people install LaTeX once and never update their packages.)

It looks like the pdftexcmds package requires Lua, though. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, it might be best to either check for the existence of the \shellescape primitive or use ifxetex.

Thoughts?

[wspr]

If pdftexcmds is a fairly standard package (that is, it's supplied in all the major distributions) and it's contemporary to the versions of the distributions our package will appear in, then I see no reason not to use it.

Hmmm, it's probably in that class of packages for which users would need to upgrade their packages to some extent (Heiko's stuff can be relatively bleeding-edge and interdependent.)

It looks like the pdftexcmds package requires Lua, though. Am I understanding that correctly?

Not quite -- it uses Lua to emulate certain pdftex primitives when running under LuaTeX, but when running under XeTeX it simply provides a consistent interface to the commands that are shared between the engines.

Perhaps we can start with using the package and then add in compatibility for older distribution if/when we feel it's necessary.

[godbyk]

That sounds like a good idea, then. We'll take the easy route first and write more code later if we actually need to.

[wspr]

fix xetex and luatex compilation

I thought XeTeX used input pipes as well, but I
was wrong; simply bypass the kpsewhich query when
not using pdfTeX

Closed by 9b745c6