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% This is issue 31 of LaTeX News.

\documentclass{ltnews}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\usepackage{lmodern,url,hologo}

\usepackage{csquotes}

\providecommand\acro[1]{\textsc{#1}}
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       \href{https://github.com/latex3/latex2e/issues/\getfirstgithubissue#2 \relax}%
          	    {github issue#1 #2}%
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\publicationmonth{February}
\publicationyear{2020}

\publicationissue{31}

\begin{document}

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\maketitle
\tableofcontents

\setlength\rightskip{0pt plus 3em}

%\newpage

\medskip


\section{Introduction}

This document is under construction \ldots


\section{Primitive requirements}

Since the finalisation of \eTeX{} in 1999, a number of additional `utility'
primitives have been added to \pdfTeX{}. Several of these are broadly useful
and have been requirements for \pkg{expl3} for some time, most notably
\cs{pdfstrcmp}. Over time, a common set of these `post-\eTeX{}' primitives have
been incorporated into \XeTeX{} and (u)p-\TeX{}; they were available in
\LuaTeX{} already.

A number of the additional primitives are needed to support new or improved
functionality in \LaTeX{}. This is seen for example in improved UTF-8 handling,
which uses \cs{ifincsname}. The following primitive functionality (which in
\LuaTeX{} may be achieved using Lua code) will therefore be \emph{required} by
the \LaTeX{} kernel after [INSERT DATE HERE]:
\begin{itemize}
  \item \cs{expanded}
  \item \cs{ifincsname}
  \item \cs{ifpdfprimitive}
  \item \cs{pdfcreationdate}
  \item \cs{pdfelapsedtime}
  \item \cs{pdffiledump}
  \item \cs{pdffilemoddate}
  \item \cs{pdffilesize}
  \item \cs{pdflastxpos}
  \item \cs{pdflastypos}
  \item \cs{pdfmdfivesum}
  \item \cs{pdfnormaldeviate}
  \item \cs{pdfpageheight}
  \item \cs{pdfpagewidth}
  \item \cs{pdfprimitive}
  \item \cs{pdfrandomseed}
  \item \cs{pdfresettimer}
  \item \cs{pdfsavepos}
  \item \cs{pdfsetrandomseed}
  \item \cs{pdfshellescape}
  \item \cs{pdfstrcmp}
  \item \cs{pdfuniformdeviate}
\end{itemize}
For ease of reference, these primitives will be referred to as the
`\pdfTeX{} utilities'.

Engines which are fully Unicode-capable must all provide the following
primitives
\begin{itemize}
  \item \cs{Uchar}
  \item \cs{Ucharcat}
  \item \cs{Umathcode}
\end{itemize}
In particular, note that \cs{Umathcode} is used as a marker primitive for
this capability.

\section{Experiences with the \LaTeX\texttt{-dev} formats}

\emph{write}

In TeXLive 2020 the Lua\LaTeX{} format will use the new LuaHB\TeX{} engine, which is Lua\TeX{} with an embedded HarfBuzz library.
HarfBuzz can be used by setting a suitable renderer in the font declaration. An interface for that is provided by \pkg{fontspec}.
This additional font renderer will greatly improve the shaping of various scripts, which are currently handled correctly only by \XeTeX{}.
To simplify the testing of the new engine, binaries have been added to MiKTeX and TeXLive 2019 and both have changed the Lua\LaTeX-dev format to use it.

\section{Improved load-times for \pkg{expl3}}

The \LaTeX3 programming layer, \pkg{expl3}, has over the past decade moved from
being largely experimental to broadly stable. It is now used in a significant
number of third-party packages, most notably \pkg{xparse} for defining
interfaces in cases where no \pkg{expl3} code is \enquote{visible}. Most
\LaTeX{} documents compiled using \XeTeX{} or \LuaTeX{} load \pkg{fontspec},
which is written using \pkg{expl3}.

The \pkg{expl3} layer contains a non-trivial number of macros, and when used
with the \XeTeX{} and \LuaTeX{} engines, it loads a large body of Unicode data.
This means that even on a fast computer, there is a relatively large load time for
using \pkg{expl3}.

For this release, the team have made adjustments in the \LaTeXe{} kernel to
pre-load a significant portion of \pkg{expl3} as the format is built. This is
transparent at the user level, other than the significant decrease in document
processing time: there will be no \enquote{pause} for loading Unicode data
files. Loading of \pkg{expl3} in documents and packages can be done as usual;
eventually, it will be possible to omit
\begin{verbatim}
\RequirePackage{expl3}
\end{verbatim}
entirely, but to support older formats, this is still recommended at present.

\section{Other changes to the \LaTeX{} kernel}

\emph{fixed gh198}


\section{Changes to packages in the \pkg{tools} category}

\emph{fixed gh190}



\section{Changes to packages in the \pkg{amsmath} category}




\section{Documentation updates}





\begin{thebibliography}{9}

%\fontsize{9.3}{11.3}\selectfont

\bibitem{31:devformat} Frank Mittelbach:
  \emph{The
  \LaTeX{} release workflow and the \LaTeX{} dev formats}.
  In: TUGboat, 40\#2, 2019.
  \url{https://latex-project.org/publications/}

\bibitem{31:fntguide} \LaTeX{} Project Team:
  \emph{\LaTeXe{} font selection}.\\
  \url{https://latex-project.org/documentation/}

\bibitem{31:site-doc}
  \emph{\LaTeX{} documentation on the \LaTeX{} Project Website}.\\
  \url{https://latex-project.org/documentation/}

%\bibitem{31:site-pub}
%  \emph{\LaTeX{} Project publications on the \LaTeX{} Project Website}.\\
%  \url{https://latex-project.org/publications/}

\end{thebibliography}

\end{document}