[XeTeX] \fontname bugs?

[Jonathan Kew]

On 16 Jan 2006, at 6:40 am, Will Robertson wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Bug?

No.... undocumented feature! :)

> XeTeX 0.99b:
>
> %%%%
> \font\1="Hoefler Text/B" at 10pt
> \fontname\1
> % output: "Hoefler Text Black/B"
> % Shouldn't the "/B" disappear after the bold font name is resolved?
> %%%%
>
> Rationale: I want to present better error messages in fontspec. I  
> have a macro that holds the user's requested font name, say, \def\fn 
> {Hoefler Text}. When dealing with the italic and bold fonts, this  
> is changed to \def\fn{Hoefler Text/B}; if I resolve this name (as  
> above), then strip the quotes, it will function the same in the  
> macros that use it but will make more sense when displayed.
>

Yes, it would make sense to strip the /B, wouldn't it? Sorry; I was  
aware of this, but too lazy to do it right at the time. <blush>

The behavior of 0.99b seemed preferable to 0.99a, which omitted all  
such "qualifiers" from the name that \fontname gives you. The trouble  
with that is that if you then re-use that name, you could end up with  
a different rendering engine or a different optical size, which I  
would consider a more serious bug.

But you're right, the /B or /I should really be removed once they've  
been used to resolve a specific font face. I'd better do this for  
0.991, I guess, since you've caught me being sloppy here! For now,  
the residual qualifiers on the name should be harmless if you re-use  
it, I believe; XeTeX will end up ignoring them.

> Cheers,
>
> Will
>
> P.S. It seems a side effect of TeX's "weird" parsing of the  
> arguments of \font that
>   \font\1="Hoefler Text"        \fontname\1
>   \font\1="Hoefler Text" at 12pt\fontname\1
> return 'nullfont' and '"Hoefler Text"' respectively -- not what I  
> expected (a \relax fixes things, which was this time indeed  
> expected). I checked, and pdfTeX behaves the same.

Yes, it would. Slightly unexpected, perhaps, but correct according to  
TeX's rules.

See if you can predict the error message this will generate, under  
standard TeX (or XeTeX):

* make a copy of "cmr10.tfm" with the name "scaled.tfm", in the  
current directory

* run TeX with the input (pay attention to the numbers!):

   \font\1 = scaled at 10pt \fontname\1
   \font\2 = cmr10 \fontname\1
   \end

JK