[MiKTeX] Retrieve aux-directory path from TeX

[Konrad L. M. R. <kon...@ma...>]

When invoking MikTeX' pdflatex with the -aux-directory option, temporary files are written to (and read from) another path. However, *other* programs that are invoked using \write18 don't know this path and may not find their input files.

Here's a MWE to reproduce the problem (requires Unix commands wc and awk, but any command taking a file will do):

Snip<<<
\documentclass{minimal}
\begin{document}
\newwrite\foo
\immediate\openout\foo=\jobname.foo
\immediate\write\foo{Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}
\immediate\closeout\foo

\immediate\write18{wc -w \jobname.foo | awk '{print $1}' > \jobname.wc}

Number of words: \input{\jobname.wc}
\end{document}
>>>snip

This leads to numerous issues, e.g. [1, 2, 3].

At least issue [1] could be solved if there was a programmatical way within TeX to get the aux directory.

Is there such a way? If not, is there any chance of using \write18 in conjunction with -aux-directory at all?

[1]: http://code.google.com/p/minted/issues/detail?id=37
[2]: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=3112851&group_id=10783&atid=110783
[3]: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=3112863&group_id=10783&atid=110783

Regards,
Konrad