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Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:07:42 -0400
From: "Joel C. Salomon" <joelcsalomon@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] [RFC] fonts and unicode/utf [TeX]
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On 06/17/2011 11:37 AM, tlaronde@polynum.com wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:18:20AM -0400, Joel C. Salomon wrote:
>> At which point you've reinvented XeTeX.
>
> I've given a look at it. I don't want to start a discussion about
> Unicode, since, supplementary to the "characters"
<snip>
> there are formatting commands or rendering
<snip>
> that I don't think should be there (only the historical ASCII controls
> should be there; others should be undefined).

Ignore 'em.  Or map them to TeX control sequences.

> but no hieroglyphes or Linear B, so it's not complete ;)

The fonts may be lacking, but Hieroglyphs & Linear B *are* in Unicode;
see <alanwood.net/unicode/egyptian-hieroglyphs.html> and
<alanwood.net/unicode/linear_b_syllabary.html>.

>                                                        (the ligature fi
> is not a character; but in the XeTeX FAQ it is said user has to insert
> directly the Unicode for this codepoint since there is no ligature),

That's true for TeX's "--" and "---" pseudo-ligatures; the XeTeX way is
to insert the Unicode en- & em-dashes, or to use the "tex-text" font
mapping.  But for "fi" &c., or the more exotic ones, XeTeX will use
whatever ligatures the font's designer has put into the OTF file.

(Also be aware that the XeTeX FAQ on the SIL site is *seriously*
out-of-date.)

> But for XeTeX and Plan9 there is a special point: XeTeX uses some C++.
> As I have answered privately to someone, it is not an absolute
> obstacle---the files are not very numerous so a C flavour could be
> achieved.
>
> But if people start throwing me XeTeX in the legs, I will start crying
> for a C++ compiler on Plan9...

A C version of the PDF library XeTeX uses to translate its "extended"
XDVI format to PDF would be interesting.  C++, though....  No, I'll not
reopen that can of worms today.

--Joel