Is this a bug?

Rebecca and Rowland rebecca@astrid.u-net.com
Fri, 5 Jun 1998 15:23:53 +0100


>Rebecca and Rowland wrote:
>> Is it
>> a bug with fontinst or something else?  I've done \latinfamily{pck}{} with
>> an earlier version of fontinst 1.6 and had no trouble.
>
>...
>
>> (pckr8r.mtx) (:TeX-inputs:za finst:latin.mtx
>> Runaway definition?
>> ->\k \r-B \-18 \k \r-D \-45 \k \r-F \-73 \k \r-G \-18 \k \r-J \ETC.
>> ! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [mem_max=200000].
>
>Probably not a bug.  The expert fonts contain a lot more kerning info
>than just the regular fonts.  Chances are TeX really is running out of
>memory here.

Righto - as it happens, it *was* genuinely running out of memory, but
*before* it hit any expert afms.  Any idea why it said runaway definition?

(If you're using OzTeX, you can increase any of TeX's memory parameters by
changing the appropriate number in the config file; I set mem_top and
mem_max to 400000 and it seems happy.  No need to ensure you've got a
particular version of anything; vptovf and pltotf are big enough too.  Just
to have a pointless dig at Sebastian: why you lot insist on using that
awkward-to-use Unix beats me.)

Anyway...  I got fontinst to run on:

\latinfamily{pck}{}% Caslon Book BE
\latinfamily{pckx}{}% Caslon Book BE
\latinfamily{pck9}{}% Caslon Book BE

With these afms present:

pckb7d.afm
pckb8a.afm
pckb8x.afm
pcki7d.afm
pckm8a.afm
pckm8x.afm
pckmc8a.afm
pckr8a.afm
pckr8x.afm
pckrc8a.afm
pckri8a.afm
pckri8x.afm

And I noticed three strange things:

Firstly, that fontinst seemed to be running something like 1/5 of the speed
I'd seen previously.  Have the recent modifications slowed it down, or
should I look for another cause?

Secondly, the pck8r.fd was created correctly, but pckx8r.fd and pck98r.fd
weren't.

And thirdly, the resulting fount families: pck, pckx, and pck9 appear to be
identical when I print a test sheet.  In particular, I only get oldstyle
numerals with small caps, but I get them with pck, pckx, and pck9.

Can anyone explain these observations?

In particular, I'd like to know exactly which (virtual) founts are supposed
to end with oldstyle numerals, and what difference there is supposed to be
between pck, pckx, and pck9.

Rowland.