URL:
<https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64579>
Summary: deprecate driver-specific `internalname` member
variable
Group: GNU roff
Submitter: barx
Submitted: Mon 21 Aug 2023 06:09:29 PM CDT
Category: General
Severity: 1 - Wish
Item Group: Feature change
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Any
Planned Release: None
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Follow-up Comments:
-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon 21 Aug 2023 06:09:29 PM CDT By: Dave <barx>
Branden wrote the below in bug #61423. That bug's primary issue was
addressed, but this was left as a future task. I'm reposting his words
exactly, only updating one hyperlink to point to the current appropriate place
in the relevant file.
I'll leave it to Branden whether the "short term" and "longer term" tasks
warrant separate bug reports; my own understanding of all this remains fuzzy.
----
[An] independent but important issue in my view is to deprecate that
driver-specific `internalname` member variable as soon as possible in favor of
some other name. The design of the font description file format suggests that
a driver could pick any usefully descriptive name it wanted, however I don't
think libgroff offers the font description as a general key/value store. This
[https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/src/libs/libgroff/font.cpp?id=70a683d6733713181b8f9ae25a8bfad133d5ba68#n1304
`FONT_COMMAND_HANDLER` business] appears to be the correct the mechanism, so
that output drivers would extend the class and supply their own member
functions, and grodvi, grolbp, grolj4, and grops all seem to have done so for
other directive names. But this wasn't done for `internalname`. For some
reason, the `internalname` member variable became an ersatz union--in other
words, a junk box.
In the short term I propose to rename the `internalname` and
`get_internal_name` members of `font` to something else--almost _anything
else_, even arrant nonsense, like "mxyzptlk", would be an improvement because
at least then it would be impossible to infer identity with the other, much
higher-profile, thing groff calls an "internal name".
For compatibility with old font files, recognition of the `internalname`
directive name would have to be retained. But we can use the new name going
forward. Right now I don't have a better idea for a new name than
"disambiguator" or "classifier", which are pretty weak...I challenge the
reader to come up with a term that can encompass grodvi, grops, and grotty's
usages (TFM file name, PostScript font name, bit mask).
In the longer term, I guess the `FONT_COMMAND_HANDLER` thing should actually
be exercised on the output driver side of things as seems to have been
originally intended. Then the `font` class wouldn't need the
`get_internal_name` member function at all.
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