[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
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