[luatex] \font primitive does not read otf file

[Robin Fairbairns]

Petr Olsak <petr at olsak.net> wrote:

> >> SIMPLE problem is not compatible with plainTeX philosophy.
> >
> > then you might prefer the luatex-plain format, it has the
> > fontloader already built in, so no style files unless you require
> > them explicitly. This code just works, provided you have the
> > fonts:
> >
> >    \font\lmr=file:lmroman10-regular at 12pt
> >    \font\cmur=file:cmunrm at 12pt
> >
> >    {\lmr  \input knuth\par}
> >    {\cmur \input knuth\par}
> >
> >    \bye
> 
> This does not work:
> 
> ----------------------------------
> 
>   luatex -ini luatex.ini
> This is LuaTeX, Version beta-0.70.2-2012052410 (TeX Live 2012) (INITEX)
> ...
> Beginning to dump on file luatex.fmt
> ...
> Transcript written on luatex.log.
> 
>   luatex yourtest
> This is LuaTeX, Version beta-0.70.2-2012052410 (TeX Live 2012)
> (./yourtest.tex
> ! Font \lmr=file:lmroman10-regular at 12pt not loadable: metric data
> not found or bad.
> <to be read again>
>                    \font
> l.3     \font
>              \cmur=file:cmunrm at 12pt
> ? x
> 
> ---------------------------------
> 
> > surely, a true plain-philosopher would load plain.tex and dump it...
> >
> > ... and then find it was useless, and go back to original tex with none
> > of those silly e-tex extensions, even.
> >
> > (who has enough hairs on his chest, naturally, that he doesn't feel the
> > need to abjure other people's useful work, to demonstrate his own
> > manliness.)
> 
> Sory, I am developer of macros, I don't do it for my own prosperity. I
> explicitly need the *interface* between your activity and my
> activity. This interface is (from my point of view) a good documented
> features of LuaTeX at low level. The recommendation "use xy.sty" is
> totally unusable for me.

indeed not.  my remark was not commenting on you (or your excellent ofs
package -- i presume that's what you're working on), but rather on
people who say "please give me macros to do this" and then complain that
the macros offered "aren't compatible" with some nebulous philosophy.

> Yes, people like simple solutions and one of such simple solutions is
> my macro http://petr.olsak.net/opmac.html. In order to develop this
> macro to cooperate with LuaTeX, I need the good documentation and
> explicitly formulated interface, not the bad words about hairs on the
> chest.

sure.  your situation is different (i misread the original post,
possibly -- i thought the "philosophy" claim came from someone else.)

as for documentation, there's a pretty substantial luatex manual, and
luaotfload itself is documented (not verbosely) by its developers.

but the whole area is pretty new, and developers regularly hit against
things for which the documentation is non-existent or unclear.

which comes back to my original assertion, that packages (such as ofs,
let alone any effort to to similar for plain tex) must *surely* conflict
with what i understand of the "plain philosophy", and would surely
therefore be rejected by plain tex purists.

robin