On 17/09/14 22:22, Peter Schaffter wrote: > On Wed, Sep 17, 2014, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: >> I'm not in the position to say something to PDFPIC today (direct >> support would be pretty cool!), but there should be general tools >> for sh(1) (perl(1)...) that can be included in a defined way and >> used. I.e., roff "libraries". >> >> And the very same is true for generic use of external commands, as >> is used by you, and what came to my mind immediately when reading: >> >> . sy pdfinfo @$1 | \ >> grep "Page *size" | \ >> sed -e 's/Page *size: *\\([[:digit:].]*\\) *x *\\([[:digit:].]*\\).*$/\ >> .nr pdf-wid (p;\\1)\\n\ >> .nr pdf-ht (p;\\2)/' \ >> > /tmp/pdfpic\n[$$] >> >> For example here. There should be a way to safely generate >> temporary file names in the temporary directory that is currently >> used, whatever this is (most likely $TMPDIR). > > Yes. The way groff stands now, I'm uneasy relying on external tools > and .sy for anything but local, user-written macros. There's precedent, > though, in www.tmac (PIMG), and this seems to be the best solution > for PDF images.
Do note, however, that this will compromise portability; e.g. pdfinfo is unlikely to be supported on MS-Windows hosts. Also, since .sy is an intrinsically unsafe request, any macro which relies on it *must* be invoked in unsafe mode, and users should rightly be wary of enabling that, for untrusted sources. -- Regards, Keith.
