texprof - Man Page

texprof [options] [&format] [file|\commands]

Run the T E X profiler on file, usually creating file.dvi and file.tprof. If the file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it.  Instead of a file name, a list of T E X commands can be given, the first of which must start with a backslash. With a &format argument, the T E X profiler uses a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usually better to use the -fmt format option instead.

The T E X profiler is a version of T E X that measures the time T E X needs to execute individual input lines or macros. It writes the collected data to a file with extension .tprof. A separate program, texprofile (see texprofile(1)), is used to display the content of a .tprof file in a readable form.

The typical use of the T E X profiler is with pre generated formats. The texprof command uses the equivalent of the plain T E X format, and the latexprof command uses the equivalent of the L A T E X format. To investigate the timing of macros targeted to pdftex or pdflatex, you can use pdftexprof or pdflatexprof.

The T E X profiler's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of the other T E X programs in the web2c implementation.

This version of the T E X profiler understands the following command line options.

-cnf-line string

Parse string as a texmf.cnf configuration line.  See the Kpathsea manual.

-etex

Enable the e-T E X extensions.  This option is only effective in combination with -ini. See etex(1).

-file-line-error

Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is similar to the way many compilers format them.

-no-file-line-error

Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.

-fmt format

Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the name by which the T E X profiler was called or a %& line.

-help

Print help message and exit.

-ini

Start in INI mode, which is used to dump formats.  The INI mode can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and basic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.

-interaction mode

Sets the interaction mode.  The mode can be either batchmode, nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands.

-jobname name

Use name for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name of the input file.

-kpathsea-debug bitmask

Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask.  See the Kpathsea manual for details.

-ltx

Enable the L A T E X extensions.  This option is only effective in combination with -ini. See latex(1).

-mktex fmt

Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex, tfm, fmt, or pk.

-no-mktex fmt

Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex, tfm, fmt, or pk.

-output-directory directory

Write output files in directory instead of the current directory.  Look up input files in directory first, then along the normal search path.

-parse-first-line

If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it to look for a dump name.

-no-parse-first-line

Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.

-pdf

Enable the simulation of common pdftex primitives.  This option requires the -ini option and implies the -ltx option. See pdftex(1).

-prof

Enable profiling as soon as T E X enters the main loop. If tis option it not used, profiling needs to switched on using the \profileon primitive. Profiling can be switched of with the \profileoff primitive.

-progname name

Pretend to be program name. This affects both the format used and the search paths.

-version

Print version information and exit.

See the Kpathsea library documentation (e.g., the `Path specifications' node) for precise details of how the environment variables are used. The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables.

TEXMFOUTPUT

Normally, T E X puts its output files in the current directory.  If any output file cannot be opened there, it tries to open it in the directory specified in the environment variable TEXMFOUTPUT. There is no default value for that variable.  For example, if you say texprof paper and the current directory is not writable and TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, T E X attempts to create /tmp/paper.log , /tmp/paper.dvi , and /tmp/paper.tprof . TEXMFOUTPUT is also checked for input files, as T E X often generates files that need to be subsequently read; for input, no suffixes (such as “.tex”) are added by default, the input name is simply checked as given.

TEXINPUTS

Search path for \input and \openin files. This normally starts with “.”, so that user files are found before system files.  An empty path component will be replaced with the paths defined in the texmf.cnf file.  For example, set TEXINPUTS to ".:/home/user/tex:" to prepend the current directory and “/home/user/tex” to the standard search path.

TEXFORMATS

Search path for format files.

TFMFONTS

Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.

SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH

If set, its value, taken to be in epoch-seconds, will be used for the creation date and as the reference moment for the time related  primitives of L A T E X. This is useful for making reproducible builds.

FORCE_SOURCE_DATE

If set to the value "1", the time-related T E X primitives (\year, \month, \day, \time) are also initialized from the value of SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH.  This is not recommended if there is any viable alternative.

Many, many more environment variables may be consulted related to path searching.  See the Kpathsea manual.

The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to system.  Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.

*.tfm

Metric files for T E X's fonts.

*.fmt

Predigested T E X format files.

*.pk *.pfb

Font files used by T E X.

This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete documentation for the T E X profiler can be found in texprof.pdf. Further information can be found in the  manual of the Kpathsea library.

This version of the T E X profiler does not implement all of the primitives that pdftex provides, and further, it will not produce the same side effects.

The T E X profiler should compile on a large variety of machine architectures and operating systems. The function to obtain timing information id POSIX specific.

The sources of the T E X profiler are hosted at https://github.com/ruckertm/HINT

texprofiler(1), tex(1), latex(1), pdftex(1), pdflatex(1),and kpsewhich(1).

The primary author of the T E X profiler is Martin Ruckert, with eT E X extensions by Peter Breitenlohner, L A T E X extensions by Thierry Laronde, and the kpathsearch library by Karl Berry.

T E X was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his WEB system for Pascal programs.

Many, many more contributed to the typesetting system now known as T E X; far too many to name all of them here.

texprofile(1).