Re: How can I check for the existence of a glyph in TeX?

[Alan Jeffrey <ajeffrey@cs.depaul.edu>]

Berthold K.P. Horn wrote:

> I find this unacceptable.  A font is a font.  I can't have TeX not knowing
> what
> is going on.  The inability of some drivers to get at the glyphs is a bug
> that should be fixed, not a `feature' that should be pushed under the rug
> by additional layers of hair.  JMHO.

Yes, but it's a bug with the OS, so either we drop support for MacOs, or
we double the number of fonts out there (and reduce document portability
while we're at it), or... what?

And there's also the problem that if the TFMs just don't include a
glyph, then TeX's default behaviour is only to report the missing glyph
to the log file, *not* to the user.  If I remember correctly, this is
one of those `tough, there's nothing you can do about it without
recompiling the TeX program' TeX features.

So yes, these are bugs, but they're bugs which we have to work around,
if we want to provide fonts which work on most any TeX implementation on
most any OS with most any driver.

Alan.