[Tex/LaTex] latexmk -outdir with \include

includelatexmk

I'm trying to get latexmk to compile a .tex file with external \include{...} references to a specific build directory so I don't pollute my directory tree with .aux files, etc.

However, it appears latexmk doesn't do as I'd expect when it compiles the included files. For example, consider a file file1.tex which has something like

%%%%%
\include{chapters/test}
%%%%%

When I run

latexmk -pdf -pdflatex="pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error" file1.tex

everything works fine, but

latexmk -pdf -pdflatex="pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error" -outdir=build file1.tex

gives me the error

Latexmk: Missing input file: 'chapters/test.aux' from line
  'No file chapters/test.aux.'

If I don't have the \include statement, using \input instead, everything compiles nicely to the build directory as you would expect.

For reference, I'm working on Mac OSX w/ MacTeX, as I understand there are a few differences in the implementation of latexmk between MacTeX and MikeTeX… any help would be much appreciated, as I've been beating my head against this for a while now.

Best Answer

Actually, this isn't a latexmk problem. If you look at the .log file or at the actual screen output, you'll see that it is pdflatex that had a problem. If you run pdflatex from the command line with the -output-directory=build option, you will get exactly the same errors. The primary error is that pdflatex can't create the file chapters/test.aux.

The solution is simply to create a chapters subdirectory of your build directory.

(The messages you saw from latexmk are its summary of what it is currently programmed to treat as common significant warnings and errors. But it's an incomplete summary. In general, if you find an error and don't understand what to do about it, it's worth going through the .log file; that provides much more information than latexmk's summary.)

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] LaTeXmk, xelatex and Texmaker

I've put that line (slightly modified) in a "user command" in Texmaker

latexmk -e "$pdflatex=q/xelatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode/" -pdf %

and the document has been built successfully.

[Tex/LaTex] AUCTeX -output-directory + copy *.pdf to working directory

If you want to use AUCTeX so desperately:

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
                 (push 
                  '("Latex_outdir" "%`pdflatex --output-directory=/tmp %(mode)%' %t" 
                TeX-run-TeX nil (latex-mode doctex-mode) 
                :help "Run pdflatex with output in /tmp")
                  TeX-command-list)))

The question you linked to in your last comment is still unanswered, and will cause a serious problem with this setup: AUCTeX won't be able to locate your auxiliary files, and thus deduce the next step in the compilation step.

I suggest you use latexmk for the whole process instead:

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
                 (push 
                  '("Make" "latexmk -outdir=/tmp %t" TeX-run-TeX nil t
                :help "Make pdf output using latexmk.")
                  TeX-command-list)))

Latexmk is aware of the option outdir, and will automatically search for the auxiliary files in this directory.

Either way, note the following point (from man latexmk):

Commonly, the directory specified for output files is a subdirectory of the current working directory. However, if you specify some other directory, e.g., "/tmp/foo" or "../output", be aware that this could cause problems, e.g., with makeindex or bibtex. This is because modern versions of these programs, by default, will refuse to work when they find that they are asked to write to a file in a directory that appears not to be the current working directory or one of its subdirectories. This is part of security measures by the whole TeX system that try to prevent malicious or errant TeX documents from incorrectly messing with a user's files. If for $out_dir or $aux_dir you really do need to specify an absolute pathname (e.g., "/tmp/foo") or a path (e.g., "../output") that includes a higher-level directory, then you need to disable the security measures (and assume any risks). This can be done by temporarily setting the operating system's environment variable openout_any to "a" (as in "all"), to override the default "paranoid" setting.

Another potential problem with this setting is that all your documents will share the same temporary directory, so you will need to make sure they all have different names.

For your cp step, you can use this line in your .latexmkrc:

$pdflatex .= ' && cp -v %Z/%D %D';

Note that most of this is untested, please let me know if it doesn't work.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] LaTeXmk, xelatex and Texmaker

[Tex/LaTex] AUCTeX -output-directory + copy *.pdf to working directory

Related Question