Created attachment 957456 [details]
output of fc-match command with FC_DEBUG=3

$ export FC_DEBUG=3
$ fc-match Helvetica > fc-match-debug

According to the debugging log:
Font 120 Pattern has 22 elts (size 22)
	family: "Helvetica"(w) "Helvetica Narrow"(w)
	familylang: "en"(w) "en"(w)
	style: "Narrow"(w) "Regular"(w)
	stylelang: "en"(w) "en"(w)
	fullname: "Helvetica-Narrow"(w)
	fullnamelang: "en"(w)
	slant: 0(i)(w)
	weight: 100(i)(w)
	width: 100(i)(w)
	foundry: "unknown"(w)
	file: "/usr/share/fonts/macos/Helvetica-Narrow.ttf"(w)
	index: 0(i)(w)
	outline: True(w)
	scalable: True(w)
	charset: 
	0000: 00000000 ffffffff ffffffff 7fffffff 00000000 ff5fdffe ffffffff ffffffff
	0001: 00000000 00020000 000c0006 61000003 00040000 00000000 00000000 00000000
	0002: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 3f0000c0 00000000
	0003: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 10000000 00000000 00000000
	0020: 77180000 06010047 00000010 00000000 00000000 00001000 00000000 00000000
	0021: 00000000 00000004 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
	0022: 00040000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
	00fb: 00000006 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
(w)
	lang: aa|ay|bi|br|ch|co|da|de|en|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fo|fr|fur|fy|gd|gl|gv|ho|ia|id|ie|io|is|it|lb|mg|nb|nds|nl|nn|no|nr|nso|oc|om|pt|rm|sma|smj|so|sq|ss|st|sv|sw|tl|tn|ts|uz|vo|vot|wa|xh|yap|zu|an|fil|ht|jv|kj|kwm|li|ms|ng|pap-an|pap-aw|rn|rw|sc|sg|sn|su|za(w)
	fontversion: 65536(i)(w)
	capability: "otlayout:latn"(w)
	fontformat: "TrueType"(w)
	decorative: False(w)
	hash: "sha256:577eb1902dadf25d3714a054eee40a9d86c23646efd23b82aa71ca519a175fff"(w)
	postscriptname: "Helvetica-Narrow"(w)

 family: 1  "Helvetica"(s) "DejaVu Sans"(w) "PT Sans"(w) "Liberation Sans Narrow"(w) "Bitstream Vera Sans"(w) "DejaVu Sans"(w) "Verdana"(w) "Arial"(w) "Albany AMT"(w) "Luxi Sans"(w) "Nimbus Sans L"(w) "Helvetica"(w) "Lucida Sans Unicode"(w) "BPG Glaho International"(w) "Tahoma"(w) "Carlito"(w) "Droid Sans"(w) "Nachlieli"(w) "Lucida Sans Unicode"(w) "Yudit Unicode"(w) "Kerkis"(w) "ArmNet Helvetica"(w) "Artsounk"(w) "BPG UTF8 M"(w) "Waree"(w) "Loma"(w) "Garuda"(w) "Umpush"(w) "Saysettha Unicode"(w) "JG Lao Old Arial"(w) "GF Zemen Unicode"(w) "Pigiarniq"(w) "B Davat"(w) "B Compset"(w) "Kacst-Qr"(w) "Urdu Nastaliq Unicode"(w) "Raghindi"(w) "Mukti Narrow"(w) "malayalam"(w) "Sampige"(w) "padmaa"(w) "Hapax Berbère"(w) "MS Gothic"(w) "UmePlus P Gothic"(w) "SimSun"(w) "PMingLiu"(w) "WenQuanYi Zen Hei"(w) "WenQuanYi Bitmap Song"(w) "AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni"(w) "AR PL New Sung"(w) "MgOpen Modata"(w) "VL Gothic"(w) "IPAMonaGothic"(w) "IPAGothic"(w) "Sazanami Gothic"(w) "Kochi Gothic"(w) "AR PL KaitiM GB"(w) "AR PL KaitiM Big5"(w) "AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni"(w) "AR PL SungtiL GB"(w) "AR PL Mingti2L Big5"(w) "ＭＳ ゴシック"(w) "ZYSong18030"(w) "TSCu_Paranar"(w) "NanumGothic"(w) "UnDotum"(w) "Baekmuk Dotum"(w) "Baekmuk Gulim"(w) "KacstQura"(w) "Lohit Bengali"(w) "Lohit Gujarati"(w) "Lohit Hindi"(w) "Lohit Marathi"(w) "Lohit Maithili"(w) "Lohit Kashmiri"(w) "Lohit Konkani"(w) "Lohit Nepali"(w) "Lohit Sindhi"(w) "Lohit Punjabi"(w) "Lohit Tamil"(w) "Meera"(w) "Lohit Malayalam"(w) "Lohit Kannada"(w) "Lohit Telugu"(w) "Lohit Oriya"(w) "LKLUG"(w) "Mingzat"(w) "Padauk"(w) "Noto Sans Mandaic"(w) "Noto Sans Tai Tham"(w) "Noto Sans Tai Viet"(w) "Nuosu SIL"(w) "FreeSans"(w) "FreeSans"(w) "Arial Unicode MS"(w) "Arial Unicode"(w) "Code2000"(w) "Code2001"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "Roya"(w) "Koodak"(w) "Terafik"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w),  "Helvetica"(w) "Helvetica Narrow"(w)
 slant: 1  0(i)(s),  0(i)(w)
 weight: 1  100(i)(s),  100(i)(w)
 width: 1  100(i)(s),  100(i)(w)
 lang: 1  "en"(w),  aa|ay|bi|br|ch|co|da|de|en|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fo|fr|fur|fy|gd|gl|gv|ho|ia|id|ie|io|is|it|lb|mg|nb|nds|nl|nn|no|nr|nso|oc|om|pt|rm|sma|smj|so|sq|ss|st|sv|sw|tl|tn|ts|uz|vo|vot|wa|xh|yap|zu|an|fil|ht|jv|kj|kwm|li|ms|ng|pap-an|pap-aw|rn|rw|sc|sg|sn|su|za(w)
 fontversion: 2.14742e+12  2147483647(i)(s),  65536(i)(w)
 decorative: 1  False(s),  False(w)
Score 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 12 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 2.14742e+12

Font 122 Pattern has 22 elts (size 22)
	family: "Helvetica"(w)
	familylang: "en"(w)
	style: "Regular"(w)
	stylelang: "en"(w)
	fullname: "Helvetica"(w)
	fullnamelang: "en"(w)
	slant: 0(i)(w)
	weight: 100(i)(w)
	width: 100(i)(w)
	foundry: "unknown"(w)
	file: "/usr/share/fonts/macos/Helvetica.ttf"(w)
	index: 0(i)(w)
	outline: True(w)
	scalable: True(w)
	charset: 
	0000: 00000000 ffffffff ffffffff 7fffffff 00000000 ff5fdffe ffffffff ffffffff
	0001: 00000000 00020000 000c0006 61000003 00040000 00000000 00000000 00000000
	0002: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 3f0000c0 00000000
	0003: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 10000000 00000000 00000000
	0020: 77180000 06010047 00000010 00000000 00000000 00001000 00000000 00000000
	0021: 00000000 00000004 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
	0022: 00040000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
	00fb: 00000006 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
(w)
	lang: aa|ay|bi|br|ch|co|da|de|en|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fo|fr|fur|fy|gd|gl|gv|ho|ia|id|ie|io|is|it|lb|mg|nb|nds|nl|nn|no|nr|nso|oc|om|pt|rm|sma|smj|so|sq|ss|st|sv|sw|tl|tn|ts|uz|vo|vot|wa|xh|yap|zu|an|fil|ht|jv|kj|kwm|li|ms|ng|pap-an|pap-aw|rn|rw|sc|sg|sn|su|za(w)
	fontversion: 65536(i)(w)
	capability: "otlayout:latn"(w)
	fontformat: "TrueType"(w)
	decorative: False(w)
	hash: "sha256:22e6b0ab68b66d28ed39ed3b4613cedb31e79a3bebeb025b1b4a1a6243766578"(w)
	postscriptname: "Helvetica"(w)

 family: 1  "Helvetica"(s) "DejaVu Sans"(w) "PT Sans"(w) "Liberation Sans Narrow"(w) "Bitstream Vera Sans"(w) "DejaVu Sans"(w) "Verdana"(w) "Arial"(w) "Albany AMT"(w) "Luxi Sans"(w) "Nimbus Sans L"(w) "Helvetica"(w) "Lucida Sans Unicode"(w) "BPG Glaho International"(w) "Tahoma"(w) "Carlito"(w) "Droid Sans"(w) "Nachlieli"(w) "Lucida Sans Unicode"(w) "Yudit Unicode"(w) "Kerkis"(w) "ArmNet Helvetica"(w) "Artsounk"(w) "BPG UTF8 M"(w) "Waree"(w) "Loma"(w) "Garuda"(w) "Umpush"(w) "Saysettha Unicode"(w) "JG Lao Old Arial"(w) "GF Zemen Unicode"(w) "Pigiarniq"(w) "B Davat"(w) "B Compset"(w) "Kacst-Qr"(w) "Urdu Nastaliq Unicode"(w) "Raghindi"(w) "Mukti Narrow"(w) "malayalam"(w) "Sampige"(w) "padmaa"(w) "Hapax Berbère"(w) "MS Gothic"(w) "UmePlus P Gothic"(w) "SimSun"(w) "PMingLiu"(w) "WenQuanYi Zen Hei"(w) "WenQuanYi Bitmap Song"(w) "AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni"(w) "AR PL New Sung"(w) "MgOpen Modata"(w) "VL Gothic"(w) "IPAMonaGothic"(w) "IPAGothic"(w) "Sazanami Gothic"(w) "Kochi Gothic"(w) "AR PL KaitiM GB"(w) "AR PL KaitiM Big5"(w) "AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni"(w) "AR PL SungtiL GB"(w) "AR PL Mingti2L Big5"(w) "ＭＳ ゴシック"(w) "ZYSong18030"(w) "TSCu_Paranar"(w) "NanumGothic"(w) "UnDotum"(w) "Baekmuk Dotum"(w) "Baekmuk Gulim"(w) "KacstQura"(w) "Lohit Bengali"(w) "Lohit Gujarati"(w) "Lohit Hindi"(w) "Lohit Marathi"(w) "Lohit Maithili"(w) "Lohit Kashmiri"(w) "Lohit Konkani"(w) "Lohit Nepali"(w) "Lohit Sindhi"(w) "Lohit Punjabi"(w) "Lohit Tamil"(w) "Meera"(w) "Lohit Malayalam"(w) "Lohit Kannada"(w) "Lohit Telugu"(w) "Lohit Oriya"(w) "LKLUG"(w) "Mingzat"(w) "Padauk"(w) "Noto Sans Mandaic"(w) "Noto Sans Tai Tham"(w) "Noto Sans Tai Viet"(w) "Nuosu SIL"(w) "FreeSans"(w) "FreeSans"(w) "Arial Unicode MS"(w) "Arial Unicode"(w) "Code2000"(w) "Code2001"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "Roya"(w) "Koodak"(w) "Terafik"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w) "sans-serif"(w),  "Helvetica"(w)
 slant: 1  0(i)(s),  0(i)(w)
 weight: 1  100(i)(s),  100(i)(w)
 width: 1  100(i)(s),  100(i)(w)
 lang: 1  "en"(w),  aa|ay|bi|br|ch|co|da|de|en|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fo|fr|fur|fy|gd|gl|gv|ho|ia|id|ie|io|is|it|lb|mg|nb|nds|nl|nn|no|nr|nso|oc|om|pt|rm|sma|smj|so|sq|ss|st|sv|sw|tl|tn|ts|uz|vo|vot|wa|xh|yap|zu|an|fil|ht|jv|kj|kwm|li|ms|ng|pap-an|pap-aw|rn|rw|sc|sg|sn|su|za(w)
 fontversion: 2.14742e+12  2147483647(i)(s),  65536(i)(w)
 decorative: 1  False(s),  False(w)
Score 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 12 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 2.14742e+12

Both has the same score on that query:
Score 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 12 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 2.14742e+12
Score 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 12 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 2.14742e+12

So that returns the first one. plus, apparently you have an alias of Helvetica for Helvetica-Narrow. this isn't a bug then.

For a workaround, you should drop Regular from style for Helvetica Narrow and set a style to the query to match on the better one.

<match target="scan">
  <test name="family"><string>Helvetica Narrow</string></test>
  <test name="style"><string>Regular</string></test>
  <edit name="style" mode="delete"/>
</match>

Akira,

Thanks for your explanation. I'm certainly not an expert on fonts or fontconfig, but it does seem like there might be a bug here. The font, as it comes from Adobe has the following fields set under "TTF Names" (according to fontforge):

Copyright: (copyright text)
Family: Helvetica Narrow
Styles (SubFamily): Regular
UniqueID: Helvetica Narrow:44711
Fullname: Helvetica-Narrow
Version: 003.001
Preferred Family: Helvetica
Preferred Styles: Narrow

I don't know if there is a standard for how these should be formally interprited. As they are written they make sense to me: this font is the "Regular" style for the narrow version of Helvetica. There are also bold, etc. styles of Narrow. fc-match is taking the style (apparently) from both the "Preferred Styles" field and the "Styles (SubFamily)" field and treating them the same way. For complex font families like Helvetica I can see why this causes problems.

Further, I have no alias on my system mapping Helvetica-Narrow to Helvetica, as you said. It would seem fc-match is getting that from the "Preferred Family" field. I can edit the font with fontforge to resolve both of those problems, but I don't think that's the right solution. We shouldn't ask everyone in Fedora to manually edit (or create fontconfig rules for) very standard fonts like Helvetica.

The bug I linked from launchpad would seem to indicate that Ubuntu is patching fontconfig to solve this problem.

Again, thanks for your consideration. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, and perhaps re-open the bug?

Thanks for more information. let me take a look then.

(In reply to Matt Hirsch from comment #3)
> The bug I linked from launchpad would seem to indicate that Ubuntu is
> patching fontconfig to solve this problem.

There was no patches related to this issue in Ubuntu's. so what I can suggest to avoid this situation is, a) as I said the above comment, you could modify the cache with the fontconfig rule at comment#2. you don't even need to modify a font itself by the editor. b) add more pattern to narrow down the result.

> Further, I have no alias on my system mapping Helvetica-Narrow to Helvetica,
> as you said. It would seem fc-match is getting that from the "Preferred
> Family" field.

Yes, indeed fontconfig does. so the result against querying a font with that pattern is correct as long as a font has "Helvetica" as the family name.

As a result, I'm afraid I'd say it isn't a bug then.

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