Making an index in latex export --- surprisingly difficult

[Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info>]

I was trying to make an index in latex export and found that it was very
difficult to make it work.  I wonder if this could be simplified.
Here's what I had to do:

1.  put \makeindex and \usepackage{makeidx} in latex export header [no
big deal]
2.  put in \index commands (I don't /believe/ #+INDEX works, but I could
be wrong)
3.  Put a \printindex in the end. [again, no big deal]
4.  Modify the org-latex-to-pdf-process to

("pdflatex -interaction nonstopmode -output-directory %o %f" "makeindex
-o %b.ind %b.idx" "pdflatex -interaction nonstopmode -output-directory
%o %f" "pdflatex -interaction nonstopmode -output-directory %o %f")

[This was /somewhat/ of a big deal.  Suggest we add support for indexing
as a built-in option, like bibtex...]

5.  The REAL big deal:  edit my texmf.cf file to break the security
protection of openout_any=p.  By default, makeindex will refuse to open
an absolute pathname.  But org-mode will only pass absolute pathnames to
makeindex (AFAICT).  Question:  it seems like bibtex should suffer from
this same restriction.  Has anyone had that problem with it?

Cheers,
r