The latex::driver module encapsulates the details of invoking the latex programs to format a latex document. formatting with latex is complicated; there are potentially many programs to run and the output of those programs must be monitored to determine whether further processing is required.

latex::driver runs the required commands in the directory specified, either explicitly with the dirname option or implicitly by the directory part of basename, or in the current directory. as a result of the processing up to a dozen or more intermediate files are created. these can be removed with the cleanup method.

the latex::driver module takes care of running and re-running latex on a latex document so that forward references, tables of contents, and lists of figures and tables are resolved. it will also run bibtex and makeindex if it detects that a bibliography or in index have been specified, and will re-run latex again one or more times until the formatting of the document has stabilized.