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Subject:      Re: documentstyle option versions
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Michael Downes asks about the problem of users getting (slightly) different
results from different versions of a style file when a document is moved
between sites without the style file accompanying it.

This is definitely a problem, but fortunately, not a frequent one, I think.
The way some programming languages deal with it is with a language statement
in the document including the file that says "I need version 2.1 of style
foobar", and foobar itself says "I'm version 2.1".  These statements
are sometimes called REQUIRE and PROVIDE, and are found in languages
like Lisp and Bliss.

For safety, I generally recommend that folks that distribute TeX files
in source form include the styles they use, other than major ones
that are quite stable.


========================================================================
Nelson H. F. Beebe                      Tel: +1 801 581 5254
Center for Scientific Computing         FAX: +1 801 581 4148
Department of Mathematics, 105 JWB      Internet: beebe@math.utah.edu
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
========================================================================