Reflowable Output for TEX
If you want to know what this is about, read the introductory paper in TUGBoat issue 40:2, 2019: The design of the HINT file format.
Resources
- The printed book: HINT: The File Format
- The source files format.tgz
- The book as HINT file is of course the preferred format for reading the book on screen: format.hnt
Versions
Version 2.0
Again a better node layout and two improvements: The HINT file may now specify layout of nodes to help "old" version of the viewer to cope with newer extensions. So the new Version 2.0 viewers will be able to process HINT files with version numbers 2.0 and greater!This version will be distributed with TeX Live 2023. Unfortunately the version 2.0 file format is again incompatible with the version 1.4 format distributed with the previous TeX Live 2022.
Version 1.4
A new node layout for the binary format makes traversing HINT files simpler and faster. This format is used by the hitex program that will be distributed as part of TeX Live 2022. So it will be the first "stable" version.Version 1.2
This (intermediate) version never made it to the public.Version 1.1
Version 1.1 added tags to identify languages and changed the format of nodes containing mathematical formulas. It is incompatible with version 1.0.
Version 1.0
- The function hput_string needs to call HPUTNODE to make sure enough buffer space is available after the string.
- When extracting mantissa and exponent from a binary floating point number, the case for a negative exponent needed to be fixed: r=(-exp)%4; if (r>0) { mantissa=mantissa>>r; exp=exp+r; digits=digits-r;}
- The constants for the glue order normal, fil, fill, and filll, where renamed to normal_o, fil_o, fill_o, and filll_o because they did conflict with the macros of TEX.
- The macro HPUT8 needs to call hput_error before incrementing hpos.
- The function to read the input file was replaced by a function to map it into memory.
- When writing the optional sections to disk, the option -g must be used to interpret the filenames as names in the global filesystem. Without this option, the optional sections are written in subdirectories located in the same directory as the long format output file. This is usually the intended action when unpacking a HINT file that was made on a different system.
- The function hclear_dir can be used to deallocate the buffers allocated.