[tex-live] fc-cache documentation ?

Werner LEMBERG wl at gnu.org
Tue Aug 30 23:40:42 CEST 2016


>  > > It would be nice to determine first whether the cache has to be
>  > > updated at all.  Comparing directory listings is an inexpensive
>  > > operation.  XeTeX could use fontconfig (fonts.conf) in order to
>  > > obtain a list of directories containing fonts and in LuaTeX,
>  > > luaotfload maintains a list of font directories by itself.
>  > 
>  > Actually, this operation should be done by fontconfig itself...
> 
> I doubt that fontconfig developers are willing to do this.  Whenever
> you run apt-get install, yum install, etc. in order to install a new
> font, all these installers run fc-cache automatically.

I wasn't clear enough, sorry.  fontconfig *does* update the cache if
necessary.  However, it would be great to have a (heuristic) function
that tells you in advance whether this operation becomes expensive,
for example, if the cache file is missing, or a great number of fonts
have to be scanned, or whether the size of the fonts is large, etc.,
etc.


    Werner


More information about the tex-live mailing list