problem compiling example file with xelatex

[dbrower]

When compiling the example file with xelatex I get the following fatal error:

~/D/n/example (master)> xelatex example.tex
This is XeTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-0.99996 (TeX Live 2016) (preloaded format=xelatex)
 restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
(./example.tex
LaTeX2e <2016/03/31>
Babel <3.9r> and hyphenation patterns for 83 language(s) loaded.
(./nddiss2e.cls
Document Class: nddiss2e 2016/10/16 v3.2016Notre Dame Dissertation document cla
ss
FINAL MODE

NUMBERED REFERENCES
TWO ADVISORS

(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/book.cls
Document Class: book 2014/09/29 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/bk12.clo))
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/ifthen.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/exscale.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/etoolbox/etoolbox.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/generic/oberdiek/ifpdf.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/generic/oberdiek/ifluatex.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/generic/ifxetex/ifxetex.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/pdfx/pdfx.sty
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/ms/everyshi.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/inputenc.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/pdfx/l8uenc.def)

LaTeX Warning: File `creationdate.lua' already exists on the system.
               Not generating it from this source.

! Package pdfx Error: CreationDate is not properly supported;
 PDF validation may fail..

See the pdfx package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.674 ...tput-driver="xdvipdfmx -z 0" <filename> }

? 

[dbrower]

@matz-e Any ideas? This is in the corresponding section of the log file:

\pdfxsafeforxmp@toks=\toks16

LaTeX Warning: File `creationdate.lua' already exists on the system.
               Not generating it from this source.

! Package pdfx Error: CreationDate is not properly supported;
 PDF validation may fail..

See the pdfx package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                                   

l.674 ...tput-driver="xdvipdfmx -z 0" <filename> }

? q
OK, entering \batchmode...

Package pdfx Warning: No implementation for \pdfxcreation.  on input line 716. 

[matz-e]

Sorry, this hasn't popped up for me so far since I didn't test xelatex that well. I barely use it since I migrated to lualatex…

The documentation to pdfx mentions that xelatex needs to be run with -shell-escape. Not the cleanest solution, but it works, short of removing the usage of pdfx.

I ran into \pdfadjustspacing, too, which trips up xelatex, so I protected it to be only used with pdflatex. I'm not sure what the effect on the other TeX engines is, the documentation/Q&A I've found on the command are pretty sparse.

[dbrower]

If xetex/xelatex is different enough, maybe we don't support it? Even having lualatex in addition to pdflatex is a still a net gain.

I have never used xetex, nor do I know much about it. It seems to cater to using unicode input and to support arbitrary system fonts. But luatex also does both those things?

[matz-e]

That's true, it may be wise to not support xelatex. I found this w.r.t. feature comparisons. Since the question is already 4 years old, I ran the example locally. The spacing seems to have resolved and the other issue with the breve seems to be font dependent. Maybe this is too much of a niche?

lualatex on the other hand is already used by some graph drawing packages, i.e., tikz. If you don't want to have xelatex support, I can remove the few ifs that are in the distribution already.

[matz-e]

For reference, if someone is to dig this up, #6 was an attempt to solve this issue.