How to find .fmt files using kpsewhich

Question

The normal method for checking where a TeX-related file is employs kpsewhich, for example

kpsewhich latex.ltx

and the command line returns something like

<installation root>/texlive/<year>/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/latex.ltx

However, trying the same for a .fmt file gives no output. What is the correct approach?

Answer 1

You need to tell kpswhich the binary which it should 'act like' to find format files. For example, for pdfTeX one might do

kpsewhich -engine=pdftex latex.fmt

to yield for example

<install root>/texlive/<year>/texmf-var/web2c/pdftex/latex.fmt

or for any engine with

kpsewhich -engine=/ latex.fmt