[tex-live] [NTG-pdftex] Fwd: Rebuilding pdftex gives ---! Must increase the hyph_size (Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)

[Karl Berry]

    BTW, why isn't there an option to automatically update fmt files to
    match binaries?  The fmt files are supposed to act like caches. I
    fail to see a significant benefit in the "stymied" message.

I suppose.

By the time the stymied message appears, I think it would be very hard
to restart the program.  Given all the things that we do with argv[0], I
would be surprised if it is as simple as self-execing after removing the
.fmt, or re-invoking main().

Also, doing a "normal" regeneration could easily create the .fmt in a
different place.  Or the present user might not have permission to
create it in the place where the bad .fmt is.  So there are a lot of
details to think about.  It would definitely need to be an option.

Anyway, if you or anyone want to experiment with it, more power to you.
Heck, maybe I'm wrong and it's all easy as pie.  Patches welcome :).

Historically, none of the dynamic creation stuff was anticipated in
Knuth's original program, least of all the .fmt's.  I expect it cuts no
ice with you, but personally I find it fairly amazing that it works as
well as it does.

karl