[tex-live] TL2004: Technical problems and testing

[Petr Olsak]

On Thu, 13 May 2004, Karl Berry wrote:

>       disable locales completely, just rely on the xord/xchr/xprn arrays
>
> Sounds like there is no disagreement, so I'd say, Olaf, go ahead and do
> it when you have a chance.
>
> All: Olaf questions whether plain should be 7-bit or 8-bit by default,
> pointing out that the TeXbook talks about ^^ notation in tty/log output
> for plain.

I mean that it is possible to do it format dependent. The -8bit option can
be used during generation of a format another than plain.tex and default
(no option) can be used during plain.tex format generation. The result of
this option will be saved to .fmt file (xord/xchr/xprn vectors).

Moreover, the usage or non-usage of -8bit can be hidden from user by
fmtutil utility or such similar.

The plain.tex format is dessigned only for English language. It is frozen
by author. It means that the ^^ notation of non ASCII letters cannot
interrupt any plain.tex task.

Notice, that if -enc is used, then initial values of xord/xchr/xprn
are exactly documented in encTeX documantation: The initial values of xprn
have to be set by TeXbook: only 96 ASCII characters are printable.
EncTeX users have got the tools to change these initilas: by \xprncode
setting.

Best regards

Petr Olsak