Master/Child/Macro/Bibliography issues with 2.4

[Richard Kimberly Heck]

On 6/20/24 10:07, Michael Dean Pugh wrote:
>> I am having problems with LyX 2.4 that are so great that I don't even 
>> know where to begin to sort them out.  I have a LyX file which 
>> contains all the math macros I use regularly.  I have included (with 
>> \input) it at the very top of another document which is a LyX master 
>> document, containing only a title page, toc, lof, references to five 
>> child LyX documents (chapters. and here I used \include), and 
>> bibliography (thru natbib).  I am using svmono as the class file.  I 
>> used to have references to the macro file at the top of the five 
>> chapter files too, but this was apparently causing compilation 
>> problems, so I removed them.  But because the child (chapter) files 
>> were referencing the master document, which still contained the macro 
>> file as a child, they could still see the macros (bravo: that is 
>> exactly how it ought to work).
>>
>> Yesterday, when I left school, this was working fine.  I saved 
>> everything and returned this morning and now nothing is working (this 
>> is not the only problem I am having, but I can only deal with one at 
>> time).  Now, when I try to compile the child documents individually 
>> they give LaTeX errors saying that the macros are not defined.  But 
>> the macros still work inside of LyX—it's LaTeX (well, technically, 
>> XeTeX) that is causing the problem.

When you compile a child by itself, it is treated as its own standalone 
document. So it's not a surprise that the macros in the master are being 
ignored. Note that there is another option: Compile the master, but only 
with certain children included. Have a look at Document> Settings> Child 
Documents. This uses \includeonly behind the scenes.


I'd be curious exactly what compilation problems are being caused by 
including the macro file multiple times. The LyX macros go into LaTeX as 
\global\long\def, and redeclaring that should not by itself cause a problem.


> If I put the references to the macro file back in the child documents, 
> they compile individually (if I take out bibliography citations—this 
> is one of the other problems)​, but then the master document will not 
> compile.  It doesn't even given an error—it just goes forever into 
> compile mode (wheel on task bar spins indefinitely).
This, of course, should not happen. At this abstract level, it's hard 
even to guess why it might be. You are welcome to send me the documents, 
privately, if you wish, and I can have a look. You might also try 
simplifying the documents as much as you can, to try to localize the 
problem. (Obviously, do this on a copy.)

> I guess I may as well include the bibliography problem here because it 
> may be related.  In LyX, the chapters can "see" the bibliography 
> entries just by referencing the master document if there is a 
> \printbibliography command somewhere in the master.  I can see all the 
> included entries when adding a citation and select what I want, just 
> as it should work.  But when I compile the chapters individually, I 
> get "citation undefined" errors in spite of this.  Compiling the 
> master (if I remove the macro references from the chapters) works fine.
>
> I have to believe that I should be able to include references to 
> macros and bibliography in the master only and still be able to 
> compile the chapters individually, especially since that functionality 
> exists inside of LyX.  Only when trying to compile do problems come 
> up.  And I could have sworn all this was working yesterday, so I am at 
> a loss as to what happened.  How is this supposed to work?

See above on how compiling children works. If you really want to compile 
the children standalone, then you need to include the bibliography in 
the children but wrap it in some kind of conditional code, so it isn't 
included multiple times. This can also be done for macro includes, or 
anything else. Roughly:


[ERT]

\ifdefined\bibdone\relax\else

[\ERT]

% LyX bibliography goes here

[ERT]

\fi

\def\bibdone{true}

[/ERT]


I should perhaps add that this may work a bit differently with biblatex.


Riki

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lyx.org/pipermail/lyx-users/attachments/20240620/86f28e5e/attachment-0001.html>