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From: chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: TeX
Message-ID: <3157@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Feb-86 23:07:12 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3157
Posted: Tue Feb 11 23:07:12 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Feb-86 19:38:29 EST
References: <1058@erix.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 58

In article <1058@erix.UUCP> toni@erix.UUCP writes:

>I've written a macro package that uses many features from the plain
>format. Now I want to create a .fmt-file for fast loading of these
>macros.

Since `super' builds on `plain', you can do this:

>The TeX-book says you should do "initex" and then type "&plain super"
>in response to the "**" prompt (super is your extensions of plain).

In fact you really should use `virtex &plain super', since you need
initex only to build hypenation tries and the like (I think---but
I am going to recommend something different).

But:

>If I do this, the command "virtex &super" takes more time to load the
>macros than the command "tex" followed by "super".

This is because `tex' has plain.fmt `preloaded'---in core (or more
precisely, in virtual space).  `virtex &plain' and `virtex &super'
would both take about the same amount of time.

What you really want to do is create a preloaded `supertex'.  The
way this is done is operating-system-dependent (and in some cases
compiler-dependent as well).  The distributed Unix TeX machinery
for doing this is as follows:

	% initex
	**\input plain \input super \dump
	[lots of output]
	[TeX writes `plain.fmt']
	% mv plain.fmt super.fmt
	% virtex
	**&super \read 0 to \blort
	\blort=
	[here you type your `quit' command key, normally ^\]
	Illegal instruction (core dumped)
	% undump supertex /usr/local/bin/virtex		[or whatever]
	Data segment size was 6144 now is 640000
	%

The `blort' hackery was required with the 4.1 TeX; I do not know
whether this was fixed in the 4.2 version.  The hack is not required
with Pastel TeX, and may even fail (I was told that it does not work
for LaTeX):

	% virtex
	**&super
	*^\

Note that undumped exectuables are quite large, and should thus be
used sparingly.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 1415)
UUCP:	seismo!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet:	chris@umcp-cs		ARPA:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu