[tex-live] problem with texmf.cnf in texlive-inst-2007-01-06

[Artemio Gonzalez Lopez]

Karl Berry wrote:
>     However, now the entry for pdftex lists language.def as the pattern
>     file, even if as far as I know (at least up till recently) plain
>     pdftex doesn't use any pattern file.
> 
> (You mean language file, not pattern file, I assume.)
> 
> My feeling was that pdftex might as well support Babel, like pdfetex.
> Why not?  Especially since now "pdftex" enables the e-tex extensions.
> It seemed unlikely to be a compatibility problem in practice, but maybe
> I am forgetting something?
> 
> Martin?
> 
> Thanks,
> Karl
> 

IMHO, assigning language.def as language file for pdftex is misleading 
for the user, because this is NOT honored by pdftex at present. In other 
words, the user might (say) customize pdftex's hyphenation with 
texconfig, adding languages, etc., and then be puzzled because the 
rebuilt pdftex format does not take these changes into account. Indeed, 
if you check pdftex.log you will find out that pdftex does NOT load 
language.def at all:

cat pdftex.log

...
hyphenation
(/usr/local/texlive/2007-01-08/texmf/tex/generic/hyphen/hyphen.tex)) )
Beginning to dump on file pdftex.fmt
...

Again, in my opinion this is confusing, and it would be better (till 
things do change) not to assign the (plain) pdftex format a language 
file at all (of course, this does not preclude the assignment of 
language.def as language file for pdfetex and etex, as is done by the 
present fmtutil.cnf).

Just my 2 cents worth!

Cheers,

Artemio