texexec can't take a target output file

[gwern]

Binary package hint: context

While adding PDF generation to Gitit, which shells out to texexec, I wanted to have the generation run on a temporary *.tex file in a temporary directory in /tmp. (Since apparently one cannot feed in the context source on standard in and get the PDF on standard out, as would be ideal.)

However, texexec insisted on generating ./foo.pdf from /tmp/random-name/foo.tex! One might think that the --result option might fix this, but turns out a command like 'texexec --result=/tmp/random-name/ /tmp/random-name/foo.tex' only results in the creation of './random-name-foo.tex'. This is not what I had expected when I had added the trailing slash. Nor can one do a command like 'texexec /tmp/foo/bar.tex /tmp/foo/bar.pdf', nor does there seem to be any other option to get sane behavior - the PDF always goes in ./.

(I had to work around this by making gitit cd to the /tmp, and then cd back. Very annoying.)