How to install a TeXLive component using MacTex

[ClintO (Clint O)]

I wanted to install web2c from Knuth, and I noticed it's part of a large bundle (texlive-bin-extra). For whatever reason this isn't in MacTex. So, I proceeded to install texlive-bin-extra, but it went and calculated dependencies and proceeded to install all the prerequisites and redundantly installing the port parts.

I read something online that said if you edit /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf and add /usr/texbin to the path in there that this should avoid installing a bunch of redundant stuff, but apparently it won't help in this case?

[drkp (Dan Ports)]

No, this isn't possible. Adding /usr/texbin to the macports.conf binpath will let you substitute MacTeX for some tex dependencies in MacPorts, but you can't install part of texlive via MacTeX and part via MacPorts (for many reasons).

I can't speak authoritatively about MacTeX, but I would be very surprised if there was something in texlive-bin-extra (or any of the other ports) that's not in MacTeX. They are derived from the same source, after all.

web2c is actually a tex implementation (and isn't from Knuth). Did you mean cweb (cweave and ctangle) or Knuth's original web (weave and tangle)?

[ClintO (Clint O)]

Ok, so forgive my lack of understanding about TeX. I downloaded a couple of .w files from Knuth's website, and I assumed that I needed cweb in order to extract the C code from the combined code/doc source. At first I could not find man pages for the weave/tangle programs, so I assumed they were not there. Apparently cweave and ctangle are part of the MacTex distribution. Sorry about the thrash!