Docker container can't patch multiple styles of a font in parallel [Berkeley Mono]

[li-xin-yi]

Requirements

• I have searched the issues for my issue and found nothing related or helpful
• I have searched the FAQ for help
• I have checked the Wiki for help

Experienced Behavior

I have four styles in a folder INPUT_DIR:

.
├── BerkeleyMono-Bold-Oblique.otf
├── BerkeleyMono-Bold.otf
├── BerkeleyMono-Oblique.otf
└── BerkeleyMono-Regular.otf

1 directory, 4 files

I tried:

docker run --rm -v $INPUT_DIR:/in:Z -v $HOME/fonts:/out:Z nerdfonts/patcher

It can detect the four styles

Running with options:

Parallelism 0
fontforge -script /nerd/font-patcher -out /out /in/BerkeleyMono-Bold-Oblique.otf
fontforge -script /nerd/font-patcher -out /out /in/BerkeleyMono-Regular.otf
fontforge -script /nerd/font-patcher -out /out /in/BerkeleyMono-Bold.otf
fontforge -script /nerd/font-patcher -out /out /in/BerkeleyMono-Oblique.otf

But only outputs

Done with Patch Sets, generating font...
   BerkeleyMono Nerd Font
   \===> '/out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf

Expected Behavior

No response

Example Symbols or Text

No response

Font Used

No response

Source of Font File

No response

Terminal Emulator (and the title of the terminal window)

No response

Operating System and Version

No response

Screenshots

No response

[li-xin-yi]

Seems the four processes output the results with the same file name.

[Finii]

Berkeley Mono has some ... peculiarities, and that is not helped by the fact that it is commercial and we would have to buy the font to add specific patches just to accommodate their way of doing things.

It could help if you use the non-docker patcher together with --debug 2 on each font individually and post the output here.
Or at least open the docker container into a shell and run the script interactively inside the container, if you are familiar with containers enough.
I'm not sure the --debug output comes through in the docker output. Without the full output it is hard to determine the reason. Without the font available (and then, Berkeley Mono has this "create your own special font" feature which complicates debugging even further) I can not run --debug myself.

[Forst]

Not OP, but I'm seeing the same problem:

% podman run --rm -ti -v ${PWD}/TX-02-K8R14266:/in:Z -v ${PWD}/TX-02-NerdFont:/out:Z -e "PN=10" --entrypoint /bin/sh nerdfonts/patcher

# for f in /in/*; do echo "$f"; fontforge -script /nerd/font-patcher -out /out --debug 2 --careful --complete --no-progressbars "$f" &>/out/$(basename "$f").log; done
/in/BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Black.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Bold-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Bold.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-ExtraBold-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-ExtraBold.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-ExtraLight-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-ExtraLight.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Light-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Light.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Medium-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Medium.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Regular.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-SemiBold-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-SemiBold.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-SemiLight-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-SemiLight.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Thin-Oblique.otf
/in/BerkeleyMono-Thin.otf

# ls -l /out/*.otf
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       2184664 Dec 12 12:30 /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf

Debug logs with --debug 2, one per font file: berkeley-nerd-patcher-logs.tar.gz

The TTF version behaves fine, I get distinct output .ttf files.

Patcher container image:

"Id": "0ba02b84729666580965f78dffcf55ad146a89b7439bde943c4727403c80d58c",
"Digest": "sha256:a518d30894bba2ddd249b3ffc8cc6441366cbaa7c75b2cfaaa002dcbb6c21cf4",
"RepoTags": [
     "docker.io/nerdfonts/patcher:latest"
],
"RepoDigests": [
     "docker.io/nerdfonts/patcher@sha256:3914753558e0ec6eeb0d206aec93939bc23fe42f12d26869ead21f177087383a",
     "docker.io/nerdfonts/patcher@sha256:a518d30894bba2ddd249b3ffc8cc6441366cbaa7c75b2cfaaa002dcbb6c21cf4"
],

[Finii]

Thank you @Forst

This is as I feared, Berkeley Mono has a strange naming such that the patcher script can not detect the actual style of the font (and assumes Regular for each and every font.

==> BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.otf.log             /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf  
==> BerkeleyMono-Black.otf.log                     /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Bold-Oblique.otf.log              /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Bold.otf.log                      /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-ExtraBold-Oblique.otf.log         /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf      
==> BerkeleyMono-ExtraBold.otf.log                 /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-ExtraLight-Oblique.otf.log        /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf       
==> BerkeleyMono-ExtraLight.otf.log                /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Light-Oblique.otf.log             /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf  
==> BerkeleyMono-Light.otf.log                     /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Medium-Oblique.otf.log            /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf   
==> BerkeleyMono-Medium.otf.log                    /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Oblique.otf.log                   /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Regular.otf.log                   /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-SemiBold-Oblique.otf.log          /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf     
==> BerkeleyMono-SemiBold.otf.log                  /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-SemiLight-Oblique.otf.log         /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf      
==> BerkeleyMono-SemiLight.otf.log                 /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Thin-Oblique.otf.log              /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 
==> BerkeleyMono-Thin.otf.log                      /out/BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf 

Could you by chance run the bin/scripts/name_parser/query_name on one font, for example Black Oblique

fontforge bin/scripts/name_parser/query_name BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.otf

Well, that means not in the container but directly. You can download the script with the following link, it does not depend on any other Nerd Fonts scripts; you just need Python, Fontforge and the Fontforge-Python package installed.

https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/blob/master/bin/scripts/name_parser/query_name

Maybe for comparison do the same with the ttf version of the same font.

[Finii]

From the set of fonts you want to patch, probably it will be better to give --has-no-italic.

And to solve the problems with the otf fonts - it might be that we can solve it with the --name parameter. The naming is strange and we would see in which way with the query_name results. (e.g. --name postscript, or at least --name filename)

https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/wiki/ScriptOptions

[Forst]

OTF:

# fontforge query_name /otf/TX-02-K8R14266/BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.otf
Copyright (c) 2000-2025. See AUTHORS for Contributors.
 License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
 with many parts BSD <http://fontforge.org/license.html>. Please read LICENSE.
 Version: 20230101
 Based on sources from 2025-03-19 15:41 UTC-D.
Core python package 'pkg_resources' not found: Cannot discover plugins
Examining 1 font files
The glyph named Tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021A.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0162.
The glyph named tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021B.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0163.
The glyph named mu is mapped to U+03BC.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+00B5.
======== BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.otf ========
SFNT Fullname      ID 4     Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
SFNT Family        ID 1     Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
SFNT SubFamily     ID 2     Regular
SFNT Pref Family   ID 16    Berkeley Mono
SFNT Pref Styles   ID 17    Black Oblique
SFNT PS Name       ID 6     BerkeleyMono-BlackOblique
SFNT Compatible    ID 18    -
SFNT CID findfont  ID 20    -
SFNT WWS Family    ID 21    -
SFNT WWS SubFamily ID 22    -
PS fontname                 BerkeleyMono-BlackOblique
PS fullname                 Berkeley Mono
PS familyname               Berkeley Mono
fondname                    None

TTF:

# fontforge query_name /ttf/TX-02-6P4KWQXK/BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.ttf
Copyright (c) 2000-2025. See AUTHORS for Contributors.
 License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
 with many parts BSD <http://fontforge.org/license.html>. Please read LICENSE.
 Version: 20230101
 Based on sources from 2025-03-19 15:41 UTC-D.
Core python package 'pkg_resources' not found: Cannot discover plugins
Examining 1 font files
The glyph named Tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021A.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0162.
The glyph named tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021B.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0163.
The glyph named mu is mapped to U+03BC.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+00B5.
======== BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.ttf ========
SFNT Fullname      ID 4     Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
SFNT Family        ID 1     Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
SFNT SubFamily     ID 2     Regular
SFNT Pref Family   ID 16    Berkeley Mono
SFNT Pref Styles   ID 17    Black Oblique
SFNT PS Name       ID 6     BerkeleyMono-BlackOblique
SFNT Compatible    ID 18    -
SFNT CID findfont  ID 20    -
SFNT WWS Family    ID 21    -
SFNT WWS SubFamily ID 22    -
PS fontname                 BerkeleyMono-BlackOblique
PS fullname                 Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
PS familyname               Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
fondname                    None

[Finii]

Ah, you see, PS fullname (which is used by default to detect the 'real' name of the font) is broken in the otf version.

PS fontname looks good, so you can give --name postscript and the problem should be solved.

Gohu is the only (known) other font that has such a problem...

If that solves it we can add a special case for Berkeley so that the option is not needed anymore.

        if FontnameParserOK and self.args.makegroups > 0:
            user_supplied_name = False # User supplied names are kept unchanged
            if not isinstance(self.args.force_name, str):
                use_fullname = isinstance(font.fullname, str) # Usually the fullname is better to parse
                # Use fullname if it is 'equal' to the fontname
                if font.fullname:
                    use_fullname |= font.fontname.lower() == FontnameTools.postscript_char_filter(font.fullname).lower()
                # Use fullname for any of these source fonts (that are impossible to disentangle from the fontname, we need the blanks)
                for hit in [ 'Meslo' ]:
                    use_fullname |= font.fontname.lower().startswith(hit.lower())
                parser_name = font.fullname if use_fullname else font.fontname
                # Gohu fontnames hide the weight, but the file names are ok...
                if parser_name.startswith('Gohu'):
                    parser_name = os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(self.args.font))[0]
            else:
                if self.args.force_name == 'full':
                    parser_name = font.fullname
                elif self.args.force_name == 'postscript':
                    parser_name = font.fontname
                elif self.args.force_name == 'filename':
                    parser_name = os.path.basename(font.path).split('.')[0]
                else:

[Finii]

Hmm, the code looks wrong. I reversed the default some years back and there seems to be some logic inconsistency 🤔

1. always use fullname (if available)
2. if fullname is available and it is the 'same' as the postscriptname use the fullname

before it was

1. always use postscriptname
2. if fullname is available and it is the 'same' as the postscriptname use the fullname

The code should unset use_fullname if postscriptname and fullname are not equel 😬

Thanks!

Edit: Add bold formatting

[Forst]

Works like magic, thank you very much!

% podman run --rm -ti -v ${PWD}/TX-02-K8R14266:/in:Z -v ${PWD}/TX-02-NerdFont:/out:Z -e "PN=10" nerdfonts/patcher --complete --has-no-italic --careful --name postscript

% % ls -1 TX-02-NerdFont
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Black.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-BlackOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Bold.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-BoldOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-ExtraBold.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-ExtraBoldOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-ExtraLight.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-ExtraLightOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Light.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-LightOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Medium.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-MediumOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Oblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Regular.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-SemiBold.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-SemiBoldOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-SemiLight.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-SemiLightOblique.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-Thin.otf
BerkeleyMonoNerdFont-ThinOblique.otf

Is this something I should report to the font author, that OTF and TTF have different "PS fullname" and "PS familyname"? I admit I have the most basic knowledge of font file formats, and I don't know what are the intended values in those fields.

Otherwise up to you if the issue can be closed, or if you want to make some code changes for this.

[Finii]

Is this something I should report to the font author, that OTF and TTF have different "PS fullname" and "PS familyname"?

Well, what goes into which of the multiple name fields is very loosely specified and more by custom than by some rule.
So you could count both as correct. Albeit usually fonts put the SFNT Fullname into the PS Fullname (removing the characters that are not allowed in PS names), and the SFNT Fullname is at least defined to be Name-Base + Family + Style.
🤔

Whatever... what is probably unwanted is that otf and ttf differs, whichever they believe is ok, the other should be the same.

Hmm, and there is this comment, so maybe... yes.
#1772 (comment)

I never came round to contact Neil - barely have time to maintain NF. Maybe I should as it seems to be popular and I can not diagnose anything with the demo fonts, because they are different in multiple ways.

[Finii]

The font specs allow a lot different opinions.

For example the original fonts do not connect Black and BlackOblique.
If you use 'Black' and tick 'make italic/slanted' in your word processor it will NOT select BlackOblique.
Which they did on purpose, maybe?

The NF font-patcher puts the fonts into a (partial) RIBBI group, connecting Black an BlackOblique as belonging to each other.

Well, with the flag.

Maybe they have a BlackItalic and THAT is in the RIBBI group.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Finii]

I guess the bug I found above, if that is fixed the problem will be gone.
But any change on the naming algorithm is dangerous so I need to check and double check again, that no other font breaks.

But at the moment I need to add code that detects the broken new release of fontforge and also detects the bugfix, which does not have a new version number, so I need to run something that detects if ff is a broken or fixed one 😒 Coming up with font-patcher code for that took me already longer than fixing fontforge in the first place ...

[mvelbaum]

@Finii, so does the fix here also fix the issues in #1772?