\pdfmajorversion

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2019-11-01 at 15:57:59 -0600, Karl Berry wrote:

 >     > I think that non-existing version numbers should not be allowed.
 >
 > I don't have a solution for disallowing 1.9, but to avoid passing
 > through obvious errors like "PDF 9.4" or "0.0", maybe there should a
 > maximum version number defined at runtime in yet another primitive, like
 > \pdfmaxversion=200 (choose whatever arithmetic algorithm suits). Thus it
 > would be built into the formats and if a new PDF version is released, it
 > would not require new binaries.
 >
 > I'm not sure if it's worth it, but that's what comes to mind.
 > Wdy(all)t? -k

IMO it's always a good idea to catch user errors one way or another,
but in this case it's difficult unless there is a
\pdfmax_minor_version for each major version.

I doubt that it's worthwhile because the majority of users simply use
LaTeX and aren't aware of this low-level stuff.  When TeX Live
switched to PDF 1.5, a LaTeX package "pdf14" was provided.  Thus no
LaTeX user is faced with pdf*version primitives at all.

I don't worry about plain TeX users and LaTeX package writers.  TeX is
one of the most difficult programming languages and a typo in a
version number is certainly the least problem we have to worry about.
And there is no way to tell someone that he said 1.4 while he actually
meant 1.3.

I also believe that it's best to stick with the lowest possible PDF
version number by default.  A LaTeX package providing features which
require a higher version number can raise the version number at any
time.

Maybe the best approach is to keep things as simple as possible.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
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