[Fontinst] accessing unencoded charecters

[Walter Schmidt]

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 22:36:57 +0300, Vladimir Volovich wrote:

>\ifisglyph{space}\then
>   \setint{spacewidth}{\width{space}}
>\Else\ifisglyph{space-not}\then
>[...]

Thank you Vladimir; this solved my problem!

Maybe I should explain what I was doing, since this leads 
me to a change request regarding the fontinst distribution:

Most etx files in the fontinst distrib include a piece of
code such as

  \ifisglyph{space}\then
     \setint{interword}{\width{space}}
  \Else\ifisglyph{i}\then
     \setint{interword}{\width{i}}
  and so on...

This requires that the space character actually belongs to
the encoding of the base font of the particular \installfont
or \installrawfont command.  This holds -- fortunately --
for 8r, but you cannot assume it always.  In my particular
case, a physical font is first reencoded to OT2, then an
\installrawfont command adds the ligatures and fontdimens.
Since the OT2 encoding does not include the space, the
"usual" code in the ot2.etx file did not recognize this
character, despite its presence in the underlying physical
font.  Adding the extra check for "space-not" to the etx
file fixed the problem.

As a result, I suggest to "spice up" the etx files in the 
fontinst distribution and make them check also for space-not, 
if applicable.

best wishes
Walter