[XeTeX] Porting XeTeX

[Jonathan Kew]

On 14 Mar 2008, at 9:05 am, Martin Schröder wrote:

> 2008/3/14, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon at gmail.com>:
>>  I'm asking mainly because of Plan 9, a UNIX-like OS with a C  
>> compiler
>>  (but no C++) to which the freetype library has been ported.  There's
>>  an old port of TeX that doesn't work too well anymore, so there's  
>> been
>>  some talk about porting a modern TeX.  (LuaTeX requires C++ for the
>>  PDF library it uses, so that's out for now.)
>
> XeTeX/pdfTeX/luaTeX use xpdf for pdf inclusion, which needs C++. If
> you find a reliable free pdf-library in C that can be used instead
> (gnu-pdf is NOT finished), you are welcome to adapt the programs to
> that; in the meantime I suggest you get a C++-compiler for Plan9. :-)

XeTeX also uses other C++ libraries: at least ICU and Graphite come  
to mind. Porting without a C++ compiler is not really an option.

Maybe your first step should be to port GCC? :)

JK