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(kpathsea.info)Default path generation

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Default path generation
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  This section describes how the default paths are constructed.

  You may wish to ignore the whole mess and simply edit `texmf.cnf'
after it is installed, perhaps even copying it into place beforehand so
you can complete the installation, if it seems necessary.

  To summarize the chain of events that go into defining the default
paths:

  1. `configure' creates a `Makefile' from each `Makefile.in'.

  2. When Make runs in the `kpathsea' directory, it creates a file
     `texmf.sed' that substitutes the Make value of `$(var)' for a
     string `@var@'.  The variables in question are the one that define
     the installation directories.

  3. `texmf.sed' (together with a little extra magic--see
     `kpathsea/Makefile') is applied to `texmf.in' to generate
     `texmf.cnf'.  This is the file that will eventually be installed
     and used.

  4. The definitions in `texmf.cnf' are recast as C `#define''s in
     `paths.h'.  These values will be the compile-time defaults; they
     are not used at runtime unless no `texmf.cnf' file can be found.

     (That's a lie: the compile-time defaults are what any extra :'s in
     `texmf.cnf' expand into; but the paths as distributed have no extra
     :'s, and there's no particular reason for them to.)