< TeX and pdfeTeX >
Including the contents of another file with TeX is done with
\input
. But you have to be careful: TeX appends a character
with the current value of \endlinechar
to each line of an
inputed file, and that character is later converted to a space. That means,
that the following 2 examples give the same results:
\starttext \immediate\write18{echo -n X >temp.tex} X\input temp X \stoptext
\starttext \immediate\write18{echo X >temp.tex} X\input temp X \stoptext
There are at least 5 solutions, to get rid of the space before the last X:
- Setting
\endlinechar
to -1 temporarily:
\immediate\write18{echo X >temp.tex} X{\endlinechar=-1 \input temp }X
- Writing a percent sign to the end of the line:
\immediate\write18{echo X\letterpercent >temp.tex} X\input temp X
- Ending the written line with
\relax
(or a similar space-gobbling command):
\immediate\write18 {echo X\letterbackslash\letterbackslash relax >temp.tex} X\input temp X
- Changing the catcode of the current
\endlinechar
to 9 (ignored) also works:
\immediate\write18{echo X >temp.tex} X{\catcode`\^^M=9 \input temp }X
- Ignoring and removing the space:
\immediate\write18{echo X >temp.tex} X\ignorespaces \input temp\relax \removeunwantedspaces X