D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

[LUG] dvipdf and randomness

 

Bit off an odd thing I noticed today.

I recently sent someone a PDF I had generated using LaTeX (via latex,
dvipdf). He then wanted to have the LaTeX source and as I had several
versions of the .tex file lying around, I took the one I thought was
the latest version and regenerated a PDF. Then I took md5 checksums of
the PDF files... and they turned out to be different.

After I convinced myself that the .tex file was indeed the latest
version by other means, I ran dvipdf again... and the checksum was
different was again. I repeated this a few times and the checksum was
different every time.

Is there a reason for this apparent randomness?

The files are binaries so diff doesn't tell me anything but the fact
that they are different. I can view them with less, bar some
non-printable characters, and they look the same.

Martijn.

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq