kpathsea: Introduction
1 Introduction
**************
This manual corresponds to version 6.3.3 of the Kpathsea library,
released in April 2021.
The library's fundamental purpose is to return a filename from a list
of directories specified by the user, similar to what shells do when
looking up program names to execute.
The following software, all of which is maintained in parallel, uses
this library:
* Dviljk (see the 'dvilj' man page)
* Dvipsk (⇒(dvips))
* GNU font utilities (⇒(fontu))
* Web2c (⇒(web2c))
* Xdvik (see the 'xdvi' man page)
Other software that we do not maintain also uses it.
Kpathsea is now maintained as part of the TeX Live distribution
(<https://tug.org/texlive>), which includes several more Kpathsea-using
programs. For information on configuration, building, installing, and
more, ⇒(tlbuild).
The library is still actively maintained. If you have comments or
suggestions, please send along (⇒Reporting bugs).
The Kpathsea library is distributed under the GNU Library General
Public License (LGPL), version 2.1 or (at your option) any later
version. In short, this means if you write a program using the library,
you must (offer to) distribute the source to the library, along with any
changes you have made, and allow anyone to modify the library source and
distribute their modifications. It does not mean you have to distribute
the source to your program using the library, although we hope you will.
See accompanying files for the text of the GNU licenses, or
<https://gnu.org/licenses>.
If you know enough about TeX to be reading this manual, then you (or
your institution) should consider joining the TeX Users Group (if you're
already a member, thanks!). TUG produces the periodical 'TUGboat',
sponsors an annual meeting and publishes the proceedings, and arranges
courses on TeX for all levels of users throughout the world. See
<https://tug.org> for information.
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