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Return-Path: <JL2@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Fri, 6 Jul 90 18:08:55 CET
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.uucp>
From: "Nelson H. F. Beebe" <Beebe@SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU>
Subject:      Permanence of .aux files
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
X-Status: 
X-Keywords:                  
X-UID: 168

Barbara Beeton just raised the well-known problem of a
failing run of LaTeX destroying the good .aux file from a
previous run.  Many of us resort to shell scripts that
preserve the old one, and then if the LaTeX run fails,
replace the bad output one with the old one, so an edit can
fix the problem, and one can try again.

Is sufficient information available to LaTeX to know whether
the run succeeded?  If so, would it be reasonable to have it
write the .aux file in a temporary file, say .auy, then on
success, copy the new .auy file to the .aux file.  The .auy
file should be deleted, but TeX doesn't have any system
interface to permit this.
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