X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1230" "Thu" "16" "December" "93" "12:20:35" "+0100" "Frank Mittelbach" "MITTELBACH@mzdmza.zdv.uni-mainz.de" nil "26" "writing out boxes" "^Date:" nil nil "12" nil nil]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (mailserv) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/24.6.93) id AA05578; Thu, 16 Dec 93 12:22:53 +0100 Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0-sc/03.06.93) id AA10187; Thu, 16 Dec 93 12:22:43 +0100 Received: from tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de with SMTP id AA05471 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4(mail.m4[1.12]) for <@MAIL.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE:Schoepf@SC.ZIB-BERLIN.DE>); Thu, 16 Dec 1993 12:22:41 +0100 Message-Id: <199312161122.AA05471@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de> Received: from TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE by tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6315; Thu, 16 Dec 93 12:23:12 +0200 Received: from VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (NJE origin MAILER@DHDURZ1) by TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 6313; Thu, 16 Dec 1993 12:23:12 +0200 Received: from DHDURZ1 (NJE origin LISTSERV@DHDURZ1) by VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8753; Thu, 16 Dec 1993 12:19:57 +0000 Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 12:20:35 +0100 From: Frank Mittelbach Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: writing out boxes Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1213 > composed a complex stuff. Now wouldn't it be desirable to be able to save the > CONTENTS of a box holding that stuff, that is, the box fully expanded, to a > file in order to just include it afterwards, instead of having to compose it > over and over again, here and there, in any document using it? I was trying > to do something like that but it seems that TeX doesn't support such an export > of the contents of a box other than to the DVI file, which is in principle a > little difficult to parse by TeX because of being a binary file. Am I wrong in > saying that? that is correct to say. i had some discussion with Don about this topic in Standaford when extensions for TeX (2 -> 3) were discussed. The reason for not allowing this kind of information to appear has again to do with floating point calculations. They show up in the box output and therefore the file is not device independent. (as long as different TeX's have different float algos). This is also the reason for not allowing certain \un.. operations and and and For this reason it is not a problem for this list but for NTS---so please refrain from discussing the use of fixed point or a standardized floating point arithmetic here, etc. cheers frank