Re: Groff-1.22.1: No pdfdocdir created

[Deri James]

On Monday 31 Dec 2012 12:53:59 Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> > I'm getting the following error when running 'make install' from
> > groff-1.22.1: [...]
> 
> Actually, there are a lot of errors already during `make' which should
> cause an abort.  Reason are missing fonts, but it's not clear to me
> how to handle this situation gracefully.  I've CCed Deri, and
> hopefully he can find a proper solution.
> 
> If you want a quick fix, please install the URW PostScript fonts
> together with its metric files (this is, fonts like `URW Gothic' or
> `URW Bookman' which usually have file names like `a010035l.{pfb,afm}'
> or `b018015l.{pfb,afm}).
> 
> Deri, in Matthew's original report
> (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-groff/2012-12/msg00016.html)
> you can find the complete log file.  It seems that the failure of
> finding the URW fonts breaks gropdf completely so that it can't find
> *any* font.
> 
> Another (minor) issue is warning messages like
> 
>   Warning: line 28:
>     Unable to locate font 'URWGothicL-Demi!a010015l.pfb' on the given
> path(s)
> 
> The string `URWGothicL-Demi!a010015l.pfb' doesn't denote a valid font
> name.
> 
> 
>   Happy New Year!
> 
>     Werner

Hi Werner,

First the reported problem that the $(pdfdocdir) has not been created before 
MOM tries to install mom-pdf.mom. The reason is because this is normally 
created during the installation of the original pdfmark macro and pdfroff, but 
since no ghostscript was found during configure the installation of pdfroff is 
skipped. From the make log:-

configure: WARNING: missing program:

  The program `gs' cannot be found in the PATH.
  Consequently, groff's PDF formatter (pdfroff) will not work properly;
  therefore, it will neither be possible to prepare, nor to install,
  documentation in PDF format.
     
So this particular problem is due to missing ghostscript (not missing 
ghostscript fonts), and the "solution" is to create the directory in both 
places (pdfmark and mom).

Now the missing font problems, the reason why gropdf completely falls when 
fonts are missing is due to the euro font definitions in europs.tmac. If you 
remove the lines like:-

.do fschar AB   \[Eu] \f[EURO]\N'1'

Then all works correctly (the missing fonts elicit a warning if a missing font 
is referenced in a troff document, the same as using an unknown font in grops, 
and the font remains unchanged). I'm not sure of the best way of dealing with 
this. Is there a way of detecting if a particular font exists before setting 
up the \[Eu] definitions? If not then I need to generate a separate 
europdf.tmac while I am checking what fonts are available during the make. 
What do you think.

After doing the manual adjustment to europs to only define symbols for the 14 
base font which are set up if the URW fonts are not found, all works as it 
should, and gropdf works fine using the base fonts only.

During make the warnings like

  Warning: line 28:
    Unable to locate font 'URWGothicL-Demi!a010015l.pfb' on the given path(s)

Are "correct" it is looking for either URWGothicL-Demi or a010015l.pfb - older 
versions of ghostscript used to include the font with the more verbose name, 
but newer versions do not (the fonts are compiled into the executable) so you 
need the separate URW fonts which use the DOS 8.3 naming restriction.

What do you think is best (regarding the euro dfinitions)?

Cheers 

Deri