pdflatex output is very annoying

Question

I'm trying to understand the pdflatex output and I found a big problem:

I have a warning at one location, for example the line is

\end{foo} test)test

pdflatex prints the warning message and after that the line information:

l.73 \end{foo}
                   test)test[1] [2] [3]) ("C:\Users\Nils\Documents\chapter2.tex"

I though the line after "l.73" is resevered for quotings from the tex file. But you can see that the name of the next file is printed, too.

If there is a rounded bracket in it, like in this example, the output can't be understood by a parser because there line should be checked for filenames but the first bracket will close the last file...

What can I do?

Answer 1

Your question is a little vague. Here only the test)test is printed on that line:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\def\foo{}
\def\endfoo{\baz}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{foo}
abc
\end{foo} test)test
\lipsum
\end{document}

So it really depends on what is causing that warning/error to be printed.

TeX's log output cannot be parsed unambiguously, but there are rules that it follows. When it opens a file, (file.tex is printed in the console; when that file is closed, a matching ) is printed. Pages written out are indicated by [1]...[2]...etc. Any heuristic you write to follow these rules must accept the fact that unmatched parentheses and brackets could appear in the output.

An alternative occurs to me. You can use the currfile and filehook package to print out unambiguous markers for file open/close and use this information instead. For example:

\RequirePackage{filehook,currfile}
\makeatletter
\def\fileindent{}
\def\pushindent{%
  \expandafter\def
  \expandafter\fileindent
  \expandafter{\fileindent\space\space}%
}
\def\popindent{%
  \edef\@tempa{%
    \noexpand\expandafter\def
    \noexpand\expandafter\noexpand\fileindent
    \noexpand\expandafter{%
      \noexpand\@gobbletwo\unexpanded\expandafter{\fileindent}%
    }%
  }%
  \@tempa
}
\makeatother
\AtBeginOfEveryFile{\typeout{\fileindent Begin file \currfilename}\pushindent}
\AtEndOfEveryFile{\popindent\typeout{\fileindent End file \currfilename}}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Here, each nested file inclusion is indented in the console output (and this is the cause of the messy code up top). For your purposes this isn't necessary, but I find it easier for visual inspection.