You also could've generated the Lisp code directly using PostScript :) 

%!PS

% load font file
% (you don't need this, if you have a .pfa file, in which case
% you can directly specify it on the gs command line:
% $ gs -q -dNODISPLAY ZURIFB__.pfa 683209.ps )
(./ZURIFB__.pfb)    % or whatever your .pfb file is
(r) file true /PFBDecode filter cvx
mark exch exec cleartomark

/ZurichFigurine-Bold findfont 12 scalefont setfont

/print_width {
  dup
  (  \(" " ) dup 4 4 -1 roll putinterval print  % '("X" '
  stringwidth pop 20 string cvs print           % width
  (\)) print                                    % ')'
} bind def

/i2s {    % int/char to string
  ( ) dup 0 4 -1 roll put
} bind def

(\(setq ZURIFB__afm12 '\() =       % 1st line

(RNBQKO-x+.abcdefgh1234567890) {   % char list
  i2s dup 
  print_width
  (0) ne {()=} if                  % "\n", unless last char
} forall

(\)\)) =                           % "))\n"

quit

[download]

Running this with Ghostscript 

$ gs -q -dNODISPLAY 683209.ps

[download]

would've produced something like (note that I don't have the (apparently commercial) ZurichFigurine font, so I substituted Helvetica for demo purposes — you should get the proper widths with the real font...) 

(setq ZURIFB__afm12 '(
  ("R" 8.66016)
  ("N" 8.66016)
  ("B" 8.00391)
  ("Q" 9.33594)
  ("K" 8.00391)
  ("O" 9.33594)
  ("-" 3.99219)
  ("x" 6.0)
  ("+" 7.00781)
  ("." 3.33594)
  ("a" 6.67188)
  ("b" 6.67188)
  ("c" 6.0)
  ("d" 6.67188)
  ("e" 6.67188)
  ("f" 3.33594)
  ("g" 6.67188)
  ("h" 6.67188)
  ("1" 6.67188)
  ("2" 6.67188)
  ("3" 6.67188)
  ("4" 6.67188)
  ("5" 6.67188)
  ("6" 6.67188)
  ("7" 6.67188)
  ("8" 6.67188)
  ("9" 6.67188)
  ("0" 6.67188)))

[download]

BTW, as you might have inferred from the above snippet, PostScript has a native stringwidth function which determines the actual display width of a string (for a given font and fontsize). IOW, for the PS output of your module, you wouldn't necessarily even need the explicit font metrics. You could simply define a center routine in PS like this 

%!PS

/center {
  % move cursor position to the left by half the width
  dup stringwidth pop 2 div neg 0 rmoveto
} bind def

/Helvetica findfont 12 scalefont setfont

% draw "ABC" left-aligned (as normal) at (100,100)
100 100 moveto (ABC) show

% draw "ABC" horizontally centered around (100,100)
100 100 moveto (ABC) center show

[download]

Of course, this wouldn't help with the LaTeX and other backends...  (but as you mentioned having fun :)

In reply to Re: Code that writes code that writes code: Perl to Lisp to Postscript by almut
in thread Code that writes code that writes code: Perl to Lisp to Postscript by hsmyers

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