[Tex/LaTex] Finding TeX Sources in C

sourcecodetex-core

Why is it so hard to find TeX sources in C? I know the full source code is included in the tex.web and pdftex.web files, but isn't there any way to convert them to plain C code?

Best Answer

It's hard to find them because they don't exist. TeX is written in Pascal (one of the many flavors of it), but the source is interspersed with description of the code in the Web system devised by Knuth and others as part of a "literate programming" project.

The commented source is in tex.web (and tex.ch, a supplementary file where adaptations for specific operating systems are defined); one can get a tex.tex file by running

weave tex.web

and then compiling the file with tex or pdftex. The program code is obtained by running

tangle tex.web

that produces tex.p.

Modern distributions translate the Pascal code into C with a helper program, but I don't think that the C code is particularly readable. If you have available a TeX Live distribution, you can say

texdoc tex

which will open a PDF file with the commented Pascal code.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to include a programming language source code file in a plain TeX document

I've found the solution in the eplain format (which I actually use as an extension of Knuth's plain, and in addition to amstex and epsf). In eplain there is a macro called \listing that takes as argument the text file you want to include in your document.

Suppose we have a text file called Main.c. Then if you use the command \listing{Main.c}, TeX reads the file Main.c and puts it in your document, making it appear as it appears when you open it in a text editor. The text file is typeset using the Computer Modern 10pt typewriter font, but you can simply change this behaviour (for more information have a look at eplain documentation).

[Tex/LaTex] Conversion of tex to latex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{plain}
\begin{document}
\begin{plain}
\input{texfile}
\end{plain}
\end{document}

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Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to include a programming language source code file in a plain TeX document

[Tex/LaTex] Conversion of tex to latex

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