Automate the placement of LaTeX own style files

<!-Automatic placement of LaTeX own style files->

Overview

LaTeX user-defined style files enrich your life. It is said that you may be a little happy if you automate the work of placing style files in directories that are in your path.

Premise

Consider the following directory structure.

styles
|-- hoge -- hoge.sty
|-- piyo -- piyo.sty

LaTeX style files are stored in the directory with the same name like this. It is a good idea to put a README etc. in the directory.

Implementation

First, create a configuration file utilize.json in styles.

utilize.json

{
    "from": [
        "hoge",
        "piyo"
    ],
    "to": "/home/fuga/texmf/tex/latex"
}

from is a list of style names and to is the location of the style file. Next, create utility.py in styles as well.

utilize.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import os
import sys
import subprocess
import json

full_this_dirname = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
config_file = "utilize.json"

def copy(pkgname, to_dirname):
    u"""
A function that copies a specific package in a directory
    """
    #Directory copy
    #Full path of the original package
    full_org_pkgpath = os.path.join(full_this_dirname, pkgname)
    #Creating a package
    subprocess.call('sh -c "sudo cp -r {pkgname} {to_dirname}"'.format(pkgname=full_org_pkgpath, to_dirname=to_dirname), shell=True)

def main():
    with open(config_file) as fin:
        config = json.load(fin)
    for pkgname in config["from"]:
        copy(pkgname, config["to"])
    subprocess.call('sh -c "sudo mktexlsr"', shell=True)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

If you execute utilize.py directly, it will read the configuration file, copy the directory, and mktexlsr. After that, if you make it executable with chmod u + x utilize.py, you can use the style file with ./utilize.py. happiness.