[Fontconfig] Re: Structure of cache files

[Keith Packard]

On Wed, 2005-10-05 at 15:59 +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote:

> This approach is perfectly suitable for the user-generated file in
> $HOME, but it isn't acceptable for the system directories. Even the
> fonts.cache-1 approach is quite questionable, as you always end up with
> stale cache files not registered by the packaging system and never
> removed.

Yeah, the fact that you end up with files that don't get automatically
removed at appropriate times is clearly an issue -- remove a bunch of
fonts and the directories never go away by themselves.

I think the architectural neutrality isn't the real issue here, but
rather the lack of formal package management for these files.

I suggest that allow each configured font directory to be mirrored into
the /var/cache hierarchy and store the cache files there; essentially
doing a directory prefix mapping (/usr/share/fonts
-> /var/cache/fontconfig) and appending the rest of the path normally.
This will allow the existing naming mechanisms to be used as-is.

Directories which do not have such a mapping (~/.fonts) will be handled
as they are today, with cache files stored in the directories
themselves.

Should I give this a try? Does it seem like a good solution?

If we do this, what would you think about removing the
whole /var/cache/fontconfig heirarchy when fontconfig was purged?

-keith

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