Mrthfx

I'm trying to get latexmk to compile a .tex file with external include{...} references to a specific build directory so I don't pollute my directory tree with .aux files, etc.

However, it appears latexmk doesn't do as I'd expect when it compiles the included files. For example, consider a file file1.tex which has something like

%%%%%

include{chapters/test}

%%%%%

When I run

latexmk -pdf -pdflatex="pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error" file1.tex

everything works fine, but

latexmk -pdf -pdflatex="pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error" -outdir=build file1.tex

gives me the error

Latexmk: Missing input file: 'chapters/test.aux' from line

  'No file chapters/test.aux.'

If I don't have the include statement, using input instead, everything compiles nicely to the build directory as you would expect.

For reference, I'm working on Mac OSX w/ MacTeX, as I understand there are a few differences in the implementation of latexmk between MacTeX and MikeTeX... any help would be much appreciated, as I've been beating my head against this for a while now.

Actually, this isn't a latexmk problem. If you look at the .log file or at the actual screen output, you'll see that it is pdflatex that had a problem. If you run pdflatex from the command line with the -output-directory=build option, you will get exactly the same errors. The primary error is that pdflatex can't create the file chapters/test.aux.

The solution is simply to create a chapters subdirectory of your build directory.

(The messages you saw from latexmk are its summary of what it is currently programmed to treat as common significant warnings and errors. But it's an incomplete summary. In general, if you find an error and don't understand what to do about it, it's worth going through the .log file; that provides much more information than latexmk's summary.)

As @john-collins wrote above, this is not an issue in latexmk but in your tex interpreter like pdflatex.

Another solution to your problem is redefining the include command to create the output dir before actually executing include.

My implementation in lualatex:

ifluatex%

    directlua{%

        function makeparentdirs(path_with_filename)

            local mkdirp = require('mkdirp_lua/mkdirp')

            mkdirp(path_with_filename)



            require('lfs')

            % -- delete lowest directory which collides with file name

            if lfs.attributes(path_with_filename).mode == 'directory' then

                lfs.rmdir(path_with_filename)

            end

        end

    }%

fi



letOLDincludeinclude

renewcommand{include}[1]{%

    ifluatex%

        directlua{makeparentdirs(luastring{auxdirname} .. '/' .. luastring{#1})}%

    fi%

    OLDinclude{#1}%

}

This solution is not nice though, because:

• depending on both platform and command line switches, the directory for aux files may differ. You have to manually define it by running newcommand*{auxdirname}{auxdir} or similar before.


• it depends on a separate lua library from https://github.com/xpol/mkdirp.lua
  

This solution works fine with tikz' external library, which also requires the folders in outdir/auxdir to be created when using custom (not auto-numerated) directories.

I also got these errors, when using the doincludeonly from https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/TeX/includeonly On this case, these errors can be safely ignored.

But, if you would like, you can make latex stop generate these errors, if you generate a full version of the document, before using the doincludeonly commands.

Then, on the next times, it will not throw the errors until you clear your latex cache of the files.