[tex-eplain] different hyphenation patterns (recommended way of handling)

[Helmut Jarausch]

On 22 Oct, Karl Berry wrote:
>     \lang at ngerman
>     undefined control sequence
> 
>     Where is this defined?
> 
> It is defined in etex.  Are you running etex or pdfetex?  It won't be
> defined in tex.
> 
> Also, you have to set \catcode`@=11.
> 

Hi,

I am using GenToo which uses Texlive-2008.
I've sent the following bug report to tex at gentoo.org

-----

It seems to be impossible to use the eplain format (from exlive-formatsextra)
in portable way.
Reason: it's missing (some of) etex's language selection features.
E.g. for selecting the German hyphenation patterns I'd like to use
\uselanguage{ngerman}

or at least
\language=\lang at ngerman

The first macro isn't defined in the eplain format,
neither the controlsequence \lang at ngerman

So I'm stuck with looking at
/var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdftex/eplain.log
finding out the NUMBER of the ngerman patterns and using
\language=NUMBER

Truely not portable.

-----

I've got the following answers:
---
This will probably turn out to be more of a feature request for the upstream
project. Assigning to tex team, who can forward the request or suggest where
you could post one yourself.
---
yes; I'm no eplain expert so you might want to ask on a tex/eplain
mailing list/group to get a more useful answer, but I think this is
intentional: nowhere have I read that eplain should support etex
additional commands.

> And for the original tex engine I need
> \language=<NUMBER>
> 
> But which NUMBER corresponds to which language?

I think there is no real solution there: the number will probably
depend on your language.def/dat file and how it is ordered :/
That's why we have to rebuild the formats when adding a new hyphenation
support.
---

So, what is the current situation?

Is Texlive eplain package assumed to be built with etex (i.e.
including etex.source when building the format).

Whom may beg to make using eplain+language support a bit
portable?

Many thanks for listening,
Helmut.



-- 
Helmut Jarausch

Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
RWTH - Aachen University
D 52056 Aachen, Germany