🚀 go-pugleaf

For those curious as to just exactly *why* an encoding vector is
required for all user-defined fonts...

from the Red Book, 2nd Ed., p.105:

  When a PostScript program tries to print a character of a user-defined
  font **and the character is not already present in the font cache**, the
  font machinery... executes the font's BuildChar procedure.

Given a character code in a show string, the letterform corresponding to that 
character code is determined by using the character code as an index into the
encoding vector to obtain a character name. Hence even though a Type 3 font
may never use it, the encoding vector is required for the font machinery to 
determine if a character is present in the font cache.

Also, it's worthwhile to note that recent versions *do* enforce the Red Book
requirement that the encoding vector be an array of exactly 256 objects.

Bill McCoy
Adobe Systems, Inc.