Checking versions with goal `vrs`

The author uses a rolling distribution so tools invoked by this software may change in version and sometimes the changes are breaking. It is quite difficult to find out the reason.

Thus it is recommended, to have an execution as described below

<project>
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>eu.simuline.m2latex</groupId>
        <artifactId>latex-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>validate-converters</id>
            <goals><goal>vrs</goal></goals>
            <configuration>
              <versionsWarnOnly>true</versionsWarnOnly>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

This validates the versions of the converters at each run in phase validate. The versionsWarnOnly is set to just display a warning if the version of some tool is out of the expected range. This does not mean that it does not work properly but if something goes wrong this could give some indication.

If versionsWarnOnly is set to false, which is the default, then a long list of converters is given, with their current versions, allowed versions and warning if the current version is not in the set of allowed versions.

The user may invoke the goal vrs also from the command line and there, a long list is appropriate. So invoking mvn latex:vrs without further configuration yields something like the following

[INFO] --- latex:2.0:vrs (default-cli) @ latex-maven-plugin ---
[INFO] Manifest properties: 
[INFO] MANIFEST: (1.0)
[INFO]        Implementation-Version: '2.0'
[INFO] PackageImplementation-Version: '2.0'
[INFO] pom properties: coordinates
[INFO] groupId:    'eu.simuline.m2latex'
[INFO] artifactId: 'latex-maven-plugin'
[INFO] version:    '2.0'
[INFO] git properties: 
[INFO] build version:  '2.0'
[INFO] commit id desc: 'latex-maven-plugin-1.8-355-g060563f-dirty'
[INFO] buildTime:      '2023-08-25T20:30:13+0200'
[INFO] tool versions: 
[INFO] ?warn?    command             'actual version'(not)in[expected version interval]
[INFO]           pdflatex:           '1.40.25'in[1.40.21;1.40.25]
[INFO]           lualatex:           '1.17.0'in[1.12.0;1.17.0]
[INFO]           xelatex:            '0.999995'in[0.999992;0.999995]
[INFO]           latex2rtf:          '2.3.18 r1267'in[2.3.16 r1254;2.3.18 r1267]
[INFO]           odt2doc:            '0.9.0'in[0.9.0]
[INFO]           pdftotext:          '23.07.0'in[21.04.0;23.07.0]
[INFO]           dvips:              '2023.1'in[2020.1;2023.1]
[INFO]           dvipdfm:            '20220710'in[20210318;20220710]
[INFO]           dvipdfmx:           '20220710'in[20200315;20220710]
[INFO]           xdvipdfmx:          '20220710'in[20200315;20220710]
[INFO]           dvipdft:            '20090604.0046'in[20090604.0046]
[INFO]           gs:                 '9.56.1'in[9.52.0;9.56.1]
[INFO]           chktex:             '1.7.8'in[1.7.8]
[INFO]           diff-pdf-visually:  '1.7.0'in[1.6.4;1.7.0]
[INFO]           diff-pdf:           '300'in[300]
[INFO]           diff:               '3.10'in[3.8;3.10]
[INFO]           pdfinfo:            '23.07.0'in[22.01.0;23.07.0]
[INFO]           exiftool:           '12.65'in[12.39;12.65]
[INFO]           bibtex:             '0.99d'in[0.99d]
[INFO]           bibtexu:            '4.00'in[4.00;4.00]
[INFO]           bibtex8:            '4.00'in[4.00;4.00]
[INFO]           makeindex:          '2.17'in[2.15;2.17]
[INFO]           splitindex:         '0.1'in[0.1]
[INFO]           makeglossaries:     '4.51'in[4.45;4.51]
[INFO]           pythontex:          '0.18'in[0.17;0.18]
[INFO]           depythontex:        '0.18'in[0.17;0.18]
[INFO]           latexmk:            '4.79'in[4.70b;4.79]
[INFO]           mpost:              '2.02'in[2.00;2.02]
[INFO]           ebb:                '20220710'in[20200315;20220710]
[INFO]           gnuplot:            '5.4 patchlevel 8'in[5.4 patchlevel 0;5.4 patchlevel 8]
[INFO]           inkscape:           '1.3'in[1.0.2;1.3]
[INFO]           fig2dev:            '3.2.8b'in[3.2.7b;3.2.8b]
[INFO] tools excluded: 
[INFO] upmendex, xindy
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS

This indicates the actual version of the included tools and the admissible range of versions. In addition, tools may be excluded. This means that they are not invoked and so their version is irrelevant.

The typical use case would be to use the goal in an execution to just give a warning in case some version is out of range. If something goes wrong, the goal is invoked to get the full information.

Checking versions with goal vrs

Checking versions with goal `vrs`