how to cause unix 'make' to know how many times to run *tex

Question

Is there a clever way to cause the unix make command to run a tex variant as many times as are required to resolve all references? I've used tex for a long time, and I still don't know which of all those extra files (.aux, .log, etc) should be checked, so I usually just run (pdf)latex 3 times, but that is slow for a 400 page document. I am thinking that a fragment such as the line below might be a starting point ... maybe I should just string 3 or so of these together?

(pdflatex oar | grep -vq 'here were undefined references')

Also have a look at the answers on a related question about automating document compilation — Juan A. Navarro, Jan 05 '11 at 12:08

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 04 '20 at 20:49

10

I've used in the past this Makefile, from Yannick Copin.

But, I guess latexmk also has some advantage over make (although I like using custom Makefile).

edited Jun 04 '20 at 20:49

Anton Tarasenko

773

answered Jan 05 '11 at 11:48

chl

8,890

@Yannick: Thanks. I like make because I'm doing a lot of extra things in there, besides the *tex work. Maybe I should use latexmk and make together, though. – dank Jan 05 '11 at 11:53
1

@dan, definitely, having make use latexmk to build *tex documents is the way to go. – Juan A. Navarro Jan 05 '11 at 12:00
@dan Yes, I also use custom Makefile for compiling extra stuff (like Asymptote code) and calling external program, e.g. pdfnup. Never tried to combine latexmk and make, though. – chl Jan 05 '11 at 12:13
It's a pity that the link to the Makefile example is broken now (Forbidden response), so that we cannot study this answer and learn something. – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev Oct 30 '15 at 16:09

score 8 · Answer 2 · 2011-01-05T11:55:05.777

8

You also get an undefined reference, when it is an unknown one ...

You can delete the time stamp line from the logfile and then build the md5 sum or whatever. When it didn't change then you have no changes in the document. You can also speedup your compilation time, when you do not build a pdf in the first or two run: pdflatex -draftmode ..., then only the aux|idx|...-files will be created to get correct labels/references.

edited Jan 05 '11 at 11:55

answered Jan 05 '11 at 11:49

Thanks, I didn't know about -draftmode. It speeds up my compilation by 10 percent. – dank Jan 05 '11 at 11:51
+1 for -draftmode . – lockstep Jan 05 '11 at 11:51
(+1) All good things to know, thx. – chl Jan 05 '11 at 12:23

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 05 '20 at 09:56

2

See latexmake and UltimateLatexMakefile for instance. See also Tools for automating document compilation.

edited Jun 05 '20 at 09:56

Anton Tarasenko

773

answered Jan 05 '11 at 11:50

lhf

2,212

how to cause unix 'make' to know how many times to run *tex

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