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From: cet1@cl.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: load operator
Message-ID: <1991Feb28.151933.8786@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Feb 91 15:19:33 GMT
References: <1991Feb26.010153.5370@kfw.COM> <436@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Reply-To: cet1@cl.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Lines: 37

In article <436@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes:
>Dan Mick writes
>> 
>> Should load work on a non-name-type operand?
>> 
>> In other words would you expect this to work:
>> 
>> (Times-Roman) load setfont
>> 
>> , or does it have to be
>> 
>> (Times-Roman) cvn load setfont
>
>Yes, the "load" operator works with non-name-type operands.  So does
>the "def" operator, its converse.  The following examples are all
>perfectly legitimate in PostScript:
>
>3 (three) def
>3 load ==			returns the string (three)
>
>(four) 4 def
>(four) load ==			returns the integer 4
>
>5 (five) def
>3 2 add load ==			returns the string (five)
>
Every word you say is true, Glenn, but I think you may be misleading the
original poster. Keys in PostScript directories can have any type (although
the case of names is usually optimised), but the type is significant when
matching the key. Thus the user's two examples may both be valid, but
they won't access the same directory entries. If, as one rather suspects,
he has added FontDirectory to the directory stack and is hoping to find
the canonical Times-Roman font, only the second will have the desired effect.

Chris Thompson
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