Re: \pounds problem

["Christopher G D Tipper" <ctipper@hol.gr>]

> At 11:50 PM 5/31/2000 +0300, Christopher G D Tipper wrote:
> >Well, I have played around a bit, and I find the following in enco-win:
> >
> >\defineactivecharacter © {\copyright{}}
> >\defineactivecharacter £ {\pounds{}}
> 
> >So I'm stuck, and it looks like you've got the same problem too. Hans?
> 
> I never needed the pound (and not even enco-win), but I know it's \sterling
> -) 
> 
> Pound and Dollar are tricky ones, since in the tex fonts they are in the
> same slot but not in each font. So, there is also \dollar.  

The saga continues...

Basically, \sterling produces the right results with cmr fonts, but cussed old me is working in pos (URW postscript fonts), where it produces an italic $ symbol.

So I cook up the following which produces exactly the right results:

\setupbodyfont
  [ber,pos,ver,12pt]

\def\pounds{\char191}

\starttext

\dollar dollar symbol

\sterling pound sterling symbol

\pounds

\ss \pounds

\stoptext

Then I add \def\pounds{\char191} to the original document, and I get the following:

! Bad character code (19120).
l.163 ...Raphael has called it the \pounds 20 
                                          problem. Given \pounds 20, he
? 
! Emergency stop.

Obviously it is appending the 20 in £20 to the character code. Is there a TeX trick for forcing it out of \char mode?

Christopher

PS I tried the \character[191] command and it complains:

! Missing number, treated as zero.
<to be read again> 
                   [
\character #1->\ifcase #1
                         \unknowncharacter \or a\or b\or c\or d\or e\...
l.163 ...ael has called it the \character[
                                          191] 20 problem. Given %\po...
? 
! Emergency stop.