[luatex] plain LuaTeX

Hans Hagen pragma at wxs.nl
Mon Feb 9 12:58:53 CET 2009


Elie Roux wrote:
> Robin Fairbairns a écrit :
>> you can't "put <x> in plain" -- plain is under knuth's licence, and if
>> you add to it/otherwise change it, you change the name.
>>
>> so you build a new format for "plain" luatex, the source of which loads
>> plain.tex and then does its own thing.
>>
>> this is the way pdftex and xetex deal with the matter; for example,
>> pdftex.ini is
>>
>>   \input pdftexconfig.tex
>>   \input plain
>>   \dump
>>   \endinput
>>   
> 
> Ok, sorry for my wrong vocabulary... the question with the good words 
> would be (I think) to know if someone opposes the fact that luatex.ini 
> gets \input luatexconfig.tex added in it, with luatexconfig being 
> additional macros like \newattribute.

the problem with extending plain is that in order to let it stay plain 
one cannot mess around too much with redefining

\newcount\attdefcounter

\def\newattribute#1%
   {\global\advance\attdefcounter\plusone
    \global\attributedef#1\attdefcounter}

is probably the best solution as we cannot use the regular allocation 
infra structure without breaking expectations about behaviour of the 
first 20 counters etc

there are a few more issues, like using > 256 registers and using 
chardef instead of mathchardef in for instance box allocation

i can cook up a new allocation set if needed (some trickery is needed to 
get around the inserts and so)

on the other hand, plain users probably never exceed the 256 limits 
simply because the plain spec says so

Hans




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