[XeTeX] new font question: is this possible?

[François Patte]

Bonjour,

When writing a Sanskrit text, there are (at least) two ways: roman
transliteration, or devanagari.

In a transliterated text, there are much more blank spaces between
"words" than in a devanagari text. I would like to be able to have only
one file for a text and choose either transliteration or devanagari.

Is it possible to have some active character which separates "words" in
the file and this character will give a blank space, if I choose
tranliteration, and will give a null space if I choose devanagari, but a
null space which allows ligature if necessary.

For instance, in the file we have: tasmād_dhetor_bijasya and we get,
after compilation:

tasmād dhetor bījasya (in transliteration)

or

तस्माद्धेतोर्बीजस्य (in devanagari)

(I have chosen underscore as the active character, but it is not the
best idea...)

Thank you for any light!

-- 
François Patte
UFR de mathématiques et informatique
Laboratoire CNRS MAP5, UMR 8145
Université Paris Descartes
45, rue des Saints Pères
F-75270 Paris Cedex 06
Tél. +33 (0)1 8394 5849
http://www.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/~patte


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