[tex-k] LaTeX segfaults with source specials and space in filename

[Fabrice Popineau]

>         latex --src-specials '\nonstopmode\input{foo bar.tex}' You
> don't mention what version gets the seg fault.

> In the version released with TeX Live 7 (2002), there is no seg fault
> with that, "derived from TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3.7x)".  Same
> with platex in TL2003, which is Version 3.141592 (Web2C 7.5.2).

I get a segfault with the win32 etex.exe on TL2003 :-( I have fixed
recently the case with \input on the command line albeit not for this
bug directly. The side effect is that it doesn't crash anymore.

> Also, \input{foo bar.tex} did not actually try to read a file "foo
> bar.tex" in any case that I tried, but just "foo.tex".  My
> recollection is that kpathsea will handle the spaces, but TeX
> considers a space token (catcode 10) to end a filename.  Not sure if
> there's an easy way to read a filename with spaces these days.

Yes, there is (with possibly a few limitations). Look at the
texk/web2c/tex-supp-w32.ch change file in the texlive source tree. 

What I find intriguing is that clearly the unix doesn't take care of
handling filenames with spaces. So I wonder how it can crash because of
this filename.

Fabrice