General ⇒ Insert output of a shell command into LaTeX file at compile?

[bombcar]

I want to be able to have a LaTeX file automatically show the revision number. So basically, in the file have something like

File Revision {bzr revno}

And make it so when LaTeX is run it will replace {bzr revno} with the output of that command (in this case 12). Is there a way to do this? I don't want to actually edit the file because then it would need to be checked in again.

[bombcar]

I got partially there by using:

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This is revision \input{revision.txt}.

And then having my Makefile run bzr revno > revision.txt first. But this puts an extra space after the \input command, and I get:

This is revision 193 .

[phi]

You have to change \endlinechar to avoid the space:

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\documentclass{article}

\newcommand*\Revision{%
	\edef\RestoreEndlinechar{\endlinechar=\the\endlinechar\relax}%
	\endlinechar=-1 %
	\input{revision.txt}%
	\RestoreEndlinechar
}

\begin{document}
Revision \Revision.
\end{document}

pdfTeX can also execute shell commands if that facility is enabled on the command line. Then you can say

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\input "|bzr revno"

Subversion users prefer using properties (special strings that get replaced automatically during each commit operation). Perhaps Bazaar provides a similar facility.

[bombcar]

Thanks! The first one worked great. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Bazaar supports anything like the "properties."