Re: [LaTeX] How to tell the user that the document wasn't compiled with -shell-escape flag?

Annada Behera schrieb:

Hi,
 
I am writing a LaTeX package and it invokes external Python code to do
some heavy preprocessing. I have not learned TeX programming language
enough yet to do everything in TeX. So, when the user of my package
doesn't invoke pdflatex with the -shell-escape flag, I would like print
a helpful error message telling them so.
 
Anybody has any idea how that can be done. Thank you.
 
    Annada

I recommend using the package shellesc (https://ctan.org/pkg/shellesc)
as it provides a unified shell escape interface which works out both
with traditional TeX engines where \write18 is available and with TeX
engines based on LuaTeX which don't have  \write18 and instead provide
the function os.execute .

With that package you can query the \write18-status via \ShellEscapeStatus.

The package manual plus implementation, where you can learn how
\ShellEscapeStatus is defined, is at
http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/required/tools/shellesc.pdf .

Sincerely

Ulrich