/* CRUDE */
I thought I’d start logging my daily [geekie] explorations. I’m comming out at this and believe this will be crappy at some degree. I’m also guessing I’ll be better at this over time. This is first time out so bare with me.
I had this idea for years. To have apache render LaTeX files as rendered PDF files. Many have had the idea but their often met by objections that the Tex family programs use and produce files beside the rendered file.
I’m using
My solution builds on
In my daily doings I’ a Java-ist by birth and a terrible Bash’er so comments on my scripting style are probably justifies.
I had to check up on error-handling, the old HTTP environment variables as well as bash file tests and more.
The bash script goes, however, as follows:
#!/bin/bash -e STATUS500="Status 500 internal server error" STATUS404="Status 404 file not found" function removeTempDirectory { [ -d "$DIR" ] && rm -Rf $DIR } function die { removeTempDirectory printf "$*\n\n" 1>&2 trap - EXIT exit 1 } PDFLATEX=`which pdflatex` PDFLATEX_OPTIONS="-halt-on-error" [ -x "$PDFLATEX" ] || die $STATUS500 DIR=`mktemp -d 2>/dev/null || mktemp -d -t 'cgilatex'` [ -d "$DIR" ] || mkdir -p $DIR || die $STATUS500 [ -f $PATH_TRANSLATED ] || die $STATUS404 $PDFLATEX -halt-on-error \ -interaction=nonstopmode \ -output-directory=$DIR \ $PATH_TRANSLATED &> /dev/null || \ die $STATUS500 printf "Content-Type: application/pdf\n\n" cat $DIR/*.pdf removeTempDirectory exit
The extra Apache configuration to let the web server serve .tex files through the bash script is done locally for this project but could just as well have been made globally in the httpd.conf.
<Directory "/.../cgilatex"> Options +Indexes +ExecCGI Action pdflate-action /cgilatex/cgilatex.cgi AddHandler pdflate-action .tex </Directory>
The example LaTeX document was a hand crafted Lorem ipsum and goes something like this
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article} \title{CGILatex} \author{Mats Nyberg} \begin{document} \maketitle Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum." Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. \end{document}
Entering
$ PATH_TRANSLATED=test.tex ./cgilatex.cgi # spews out a PDF text
$ PATH_TRANSLATED=test2.tex ./cgilatex.cgi # returns a 404 status
$ PATH_TRANSLATED=error.tex ./cgilatex.cgi # returns a 500 status
to see the three different cases that could occur.
https://github.com/jollobajano/cgilatex
http://linuxcommand.org/wss0150.php
http://linuxcommand.org/wss0160.php
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/fto.html