[luatex] \primitive and disabled primitives

[Taco Hoekwater]

Will Robertson wrote:
> Hi Taco,
> 
> Let's say with this syntax to conditionally enable new primitives syntax 
> I select just \primitive. What would
>    \primitive\<any other LuaTeX primitive>
> tell me?
> 
> I'm expecting that it would work as if the argument to \primitive wasn't 
> actually a primitive (whether defined or not), but I just wanted to check.

My plan is to keep it behaving just like it does now: it will execute
the primitive attached to the name given (assuming that is indeed part
of the core).

Whether or not there is a current control sequence that can run this
primitive is irrelevant to \primitive because it has its own private
hash (that hash will also be used to implement the new functionality).

The intention behind \primitive is to retain access to otherwise
unreachable primitives, so offering access to hitherto unreachable
primitives seems to most logical extension to its functionality.

Another reason is that otherwise I would have to keep track of
whether a primitive has in fact been enabled, while with the proposed
solution I can just create the csname entries and forget about it.


Best wishes,
Taco