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<div class="chapter">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title">
<a name="shaping-and-shape-plans"></a>Shaping and shape plans</h2></div></div></div>
<div class="toc"><dl class="toc">
<dt><span class="section"><a href="shaping-and-shape-plans.html#shaping-buffer-output">Shaping and buffer output</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="shaping-opentype-features.html">OpenType features</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="shaping-shaper-selection.html">Shaper selection</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="shaping-plans-and-caching.html">Plans and caching</a></span></dt>
</dl></div>
<p>
Once you have your face and font objects configured as desired and
your input buffer is filled with the characters you need to shape,
all you need to do is call <code class="function">hb_shape()</code>.
</p>
<p>
HarfBuzz will return the shaped version of the text in the same
buffer that you provided, but it will be in output mode. At that
point, you can iterate through the glyphs in the buffer, drawing
each one at the specified position or handing them off to the
appropriate graphics library.
</p>
<p>
For the most part, HarfBuzz's shaping step is straightforward from
the outside. But that doesn't mean there will never be cases where
you want to look under the hood and see what is happening on the
inside. HarfBuzz provides facilities for doing that, too.
</p>
<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="shaping-buffer-output"></a>Shaping and buffer output</h2></div></div></div>
<p>
The <code class="function">hb_shape()</code> function call takes four arguments: the font
object to use, the buffer of characters to shape, an array of
user-specified features to apply, and the length of that feature
array. The feature array can be NULL, so for the sake of
simplicity we will start with that case.
</p>
<p>
Internally, HarfBuzz looks at the tables of the font file to
determine where glyph classes, substitutions, and positioning
are defined, using that information to decide which
<span class="emphasis"><em>shaper</em></span> to use (<code class="literal">ot</code> for
OpenType fonts, <code class="literal">aat</code> for Apple Advanced
Typography fonts, and so on). It also looks at the direction,
script, and language properties of the segment to figure out
which script-specific shaping model is needed (at least, in
shapers that support multiple options).
</p>
<p>
If a font has a GDEF table, then that is used for
glyph classes; if not, HarfBuzz will fall back to Unicode
categorization by code point. If a font has an AAT <code class="literal">morx</code> table,
then it is used for substitutions; if not, but there is a GSUB
table, then the GSUB table is used. If the font has an AAT
<code class="literal">kerx</code> table, then it is used for positioning; if not, but
there is a GPOS table, then the GPOS table is used. If neither
table is found, but there is a <code class="literal">kern</code> table, then HarfBuzz will
use the <code class="literal">kern</code> table. If there is no <code class="literal">kerx</code>, no GPOS, and no
<code class="literal">kern</code>, HarfBuzz will fall back to positioning marks itself.
</p>
<p>
With a well-behaved OpenType font, you expect GDEF, GSUB, and
GPOS tables to all be applied. HarfBuzz implements the
script-specific shaping models in internal functions, rather
than in the public API.
</p>
<p>
The algorithms
used for complex scripts can be quite involved; HarfBuzz tries
to be compatible with the OpenType Layout specification
and, wherever there is any ambiguity, HarfBuzz attempts to replicate the
output of Microsoft's Uniscribe engine. See the <a class="ulink" href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/script-development/standard" target="_top">Microsoft
Typography pages</a> for more detail.
</p>
<p>
In general, though, all that you need to know is that
<code class="function">hb_shape()</code> returns the results of shaping
in the same buffer that you provided. The buffer's content type
will now be set to
<code class="literal">HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_GLYPHS</code>, indicating
that it contains shaped output, rather than input text. You can
now extract the glyph information and positioning arrays:
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">
hb_glyph_info_t *glyph_info = hb_buffer_get_glyph_infos(buf, &glyph_count);
hb_glyph_position_t *glyph_pos = hb_buffer_get_glyph_positions(buf, &glyph_count);
</pre>
<p>
The glyph information array holds a <span class="type">hb_glyph_info_t</span>
for each output glyph, which has two fields:
<em class="parameter"><code>codepoint</code></em> and
<em class="parameter"><code>cluster</code></em>. Whereas, in the input buffer,
the <em class="parameter"><code>codepoint</code></em> field contained the Unicode
code point, it now contains the glyph ID of the corresponding
glyph in the font. The <em class="parameter"><code>cluster</code></em> field is
an integer that you can use to help identify when shaping has
reordered, split, or combined code points; we will say more
about that in the next chapter.
</p>
<p>
The glyph positions array holds a corresponding
<span class="type">hb_glyph_position_t</span> for each output glyph,
containing four fields: <em class="parameter"><code>x_advance</code></em>,
<em class="parameter"><code>y_advance</code></em>,
<em class="parameter"><code>x_offset</code></em>, and
<em class="parameter"><code>y_offset</code></em>. The advances tell you how far
you need to move the drawing point after drawing this glyph,
depending on whether you are setting horizontal text (in which
case you will have x advances) or vertical text (for which you
will have y advances). The x and y offsets tell you where to
move to start drawing the glyph; usually you will have both and
x and a y offset, regardless of the text direction.
</p>
<p>
Most of the time, you will rely on a font-rendering library or
other graphics library to do the actual drawing of glyphs, so
you will need to iterate through the glyphs in the buffer and
pass the corresponding values off.
</p>
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