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(web2c.info)Preloaded executables

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Preloaded executables
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  Specifying `--enable-auto-core' to `configure' tells TeX, Metafont,
and MetaPost to suicide with a `SIGQUIT' on an input filename of
`HackyInputFileNameForCoreDump.tex' (all three programs use the `.tex'
suffix). This produces a memory dump of the running executable in a
file `core'.  (This is unrelated to the standard memory dump feature in
these programs; Note: Memory dumps).

  You don't actually need to do this to produce a core dump.  Just
typing your quit character (usually <CTRL-\>) when the program is
waiting for input (at `**') will have the same result.  But a few sites
want to reliably generate a core dump without human intervention; that's
what `--enable-auto-core' is for.

  With the program `undump', you can use `core' to reconstitute a
"preloaded" executable, which does not need to read a `.fmt' file to
get started.  Although preloaded executables save startup time, they
have a big disadvantage: neither the disk space to store them nor their
code segments (at runtime) can be shared.  Therefore, if both `tex' and
`latex' are running, twice as much memory will be consumed, to the
general detriment of performance.

  The `undump' program is not part of the Web2c distribution, but you
can get it from the CTAN archives as `CTAN:/support/undump', and it is
included in several TeX distributions (*note unixtex.ftp:
(kpathsea)unixtex.ftp.).