Cannot view pdf when option $out_dir is set in latexmkrc about auctex-latexmk

[rbbernardino]

I had the same issue and adopted another solution: change the "View" command!
You may see that when you issue a C-c C-v, the command to call your viewer appears. We need to add a build/ before the file name.

Each program has a slightly different calling method, so to find out what is it, for example, for Evince:
M-x [RET] describe-variable [RET] TeX-view-program-list-builtin [RET]
Search for your program, ex. Evince:
C-s evince
You'll see the lines:

("Evince"
        ("evince"
        (mode-io-correlate " -p %(outpage)")
        " %o")
    "evince")

Just change " %o" to " build/%o", notice the space before build!

To apply such a change, in my .emacs, I have: (I use Okular)

(defun okular-view-LaTeX-mode()
  (add-to-list 'TeX-view-program-list
			   '("Okular" ("okular --unique build/%o" (mode-io-correlate "#src:%n%a"))))
  (setq TeX-view-program-selection '((output-pdf "Okular"))))
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook 'okular-view-LaTeX-mode)

You may change to your program and it's calling method.

[tom-tan]

Sorry for late reply.

IMO the way @rbbernardino suggested is a reasonable solution for it.
Otherwise it will need too much work to support $out_dir in auctex-latexmk (I guess it is almost equivalent to implement a subset of Perl interpreter :-( ).

[j-jith]

I agree that what @rbbernardino has suggested is a satisfactory solution for this problem. I'll close this issue then, if you don't mind.

If you are interested, we had a similar issue in the vim plugin vimtex (lervag/vimtex#701). It was fixed with a function that parses latexmkrc with some regexp trickery.

[tom-tan]

Thank you for the information!
I will take a look.