Spawning programs from (La)TeX: \write18

The TeX \write primitive instruction is used to write to different file “streams”; TeX refers to each open file by a number, not by a file name (although most of the time we hide this). Originally, TeX would write to a file connected to a stream numbered 0–15. More recently, a special “stream 18” has been implemented: it is not writing to a file, but rather tells TeX to ask the operating system to do something. To run a command, we put it as the argument to \write18. So to run the epstopdf utility on a file with name stored as \epsfilename, we would write:

\write18{epstopdf \epsfilename}

When using something like the epstopdf package, the “stream” write operation is hidden away and you don’t need to worry about the exact way it’s done.

However, there is a security issue. If you download some (La)TeX code from the Internet, can you be sure that there is not some command in it (perhaps in a hidden way) to do stuff that might be harmful to your computer (let’s say: delete everything on the hard disk!)? In the face of this problem, both MiKTeX and TeX Live have, for some time, disabled \write18 by default. To turn the facility on, both distributions support an additional argument when starting TeX from the command shell:

(pdf)(la)tex --shell-escape <file>

The problem with this is that many people use (La)TeX via a graphical editor, so to use \write18 for a file the editor’s settings must be changed. Of course, the settings need restoring after the file is processed: you defeat the point of the original protection, that way.

The latest MiKTeX (version 2.9), and recent TeX Live (from the 2010 release) get around this by having a special “limited” version of \write18 enabled “out of the box”. The idea is to allow only a pre-set list of commands (for example, BibTeX, epstopdf, TeX itself, and so on). Those on the list are regarded as safe enough to allow, whereas anything else (for example deleting files) still needs to be authorised by the user. This seems to be a good balance: most people most of the time will not need to worry about \write18 at all, but it will be available for things like epstopdf.

Note that the TeX system may tell you that the mechanism is in use:

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.11 (TeX Live 2010)
 restricted \write18 enabled.

when it starts.

FAQ ID: Q-spawnprog