a Rakefile to compile tex to pdf. idea from http://rkj.github.io/LaTeX/rake/2010/01/15/LaTeX-with-Rakefile.html

Rakefile

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

TEX = FileList["*.tex"]
PDF = TEX.ext ".pdf"

DEP = FileList["*/*.tex"]

TEX.zip(PDF).each do |tex,pdf|
  file pdf => [ tex, DEP ].flatten do
    begin
      sh "pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode #{tex} > #{pdf}.log"
    rescue
      puts "fail. retry in 10s"
      sleep 10
      redo
    else
      puts "success"
    end
  end
end

desc "Removes unnecessery files"
task :clean do
  rm FileList["*.aux","*.bak","*.log","*.blg", "*.bbl", "*.toc", "*.out", "*.idx", "*.ilg", "*.ind", "*.dep", "*.glo", "*.gls"]
end

desc "compile each file for once"
task :once do
  PDF.each do |pdf|
    t = Rake::Task[pdf]
    t.reenable
    if t.needed?
      t.invoke
    else
      puts "#{pdf} is up to date"
    end
  end
end

desc "compile each file until die"
task :loop do
  t = Rake::Task[:once]
  loop do
    t.reenable
    t.invoke
    Kernel.sleep 5
  end
end

task :default => [:once]