since there info provides no way to determine the default path, I suggest we adopt your solution #2 in this form: make a leading or trailing or doubled colon expand into the default path. That's what I did for tex/web2c/kpathsea many years ago and I haven't had any complaints about it. If you do the work, great. (I'll need you to sign a disclaimer.) I won't be able to get to this until after the release, whenever that is :(. Thanks,