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Usermanual: object-model chapter
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docs/Makefile.am
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@ -76,6 +76,7 @@ content_files= \
usermanual-install-harfbuzz.xml \
usermanual-getting-started.xml \
usermanual-shaping-concepts.xml \
usermanual-object-model.xml \
usermanual-buffers-language-script-and-direction.xml \
usermanual-fonts-and-faces.xml \
usermanual-clusters.xml \

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docs/harfbuzz-docs.xml
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<xi:include href="usermanual-install-harfbuzz.xml"/>
<xi:include href="usermanual-getting-started.xml"/>
<xi:include href="usermanual-shaping-concepts.xml"/>
<xi:include href="usermanual-object-model.xml"/>
<xi:include href="usermanual-buffers-language-script-and-direction.xml"/>
<xi:include href="usermanual-fonts-and-faces.xml"/>
<xi:include href="usermanual-clusters.xml"/>

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docs/usermanual-object-model.xml Normal file
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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.3//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.3/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY % local.common.attrib "xmlns:xi CDATA #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/2003/XInclude'">
<!ENTITY version SYSTEM "version.xml">
]>
<chapter id="object-model">
<title>The HarfBuzz object model</title>
<section id="object-model-intro">
<title>An overview of data types in HarfBuzz</title>
<para>
HarfBuzz features two kinds of data types: non-opaque,
pass-by-value types and opaque, heap-allocated types. This kind
of separation is common in C libraries that have to provide
API/ABI compatibility (almost) indefinitely.
</para>
<para>
<emphasis>Value types:</emphasis> The non-opaque, pass-by-value
types include integer types, enums, and small structs. Exposing
a struct in the public API makes it impossible to expand the
struct in the future. As such, exposing structs is reserved for
cases where it’s extremely inefficient to do otherwise.
</para>
<para>
In HarfBuzz, several structs, like <literal>hb_glyph_info_t</literal> and
<literal>hb_glyph_position_t</literal>, fall into that efficiency-sensitive
category and are non-opaque.
</para>
<para>
For all non-opaque structs where future extensibility may be
necessary, reserved members are included to hold space for
possible future members. As such, it’s important to provide
<function>equal()</function>, and <function>hash()</function>
methods for such structs, allowing users of the API do
effectively deal with the type without having to
adapt their code to future changes.
</para>
<para>
Important value types provided by HarfBuzz include the structs
for working with Unicode code points, glyphs, and tags for font
tables and features, as well as the enums for many Unicode and
OpenType properties.
</para>
</section>
<section id="object-model-object-types">
<title>Objects in HarfBuzz</title>
<para>
<emphasis>Object types:</emphasis> Opaque struct types are used
for what HarfBuzz loosely calls "objects." This doesn’t have
much to do with the terminology from object-oriented programming
(OOP), although some of the concepts are similar.
</para>
<para>
In HarfBuzz, all object types provide certain
lifecycle-management APIs. Objects are reference-counted, and
constructed with various <function>create()</function> methods, referenced via
<function>reference()</function> and dereferenced using
<function>destroy()</function>.
</para>
<para>
For example,
the <literal>hb_buffer_t</literal> object has
<function>hb_buffer_create()</function> as its constructor,
<function>hb_buffer_reference()</function> to reference, and
<function>hb_buffer_destroy()</function> to dereference.
</para>
<para>
After construction, each object's properties are accessible only
through the setter and getter functions described in the API
Reference manual.
</para>
<para>
Key object types provided by HarfBuzz include:
</para>
<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>blobs</emphasis>, which act as low-level wrappers around binary
data. Blobs are typically used to hold the contents of a
binary font file.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>faces</emphasis>, which represent typefaces from a
font file, but without specific parameters (such as size) set.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>fonts</emphasis>, which represent instances of a
face with all of their parameters specified.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>buffers</emphasis>, which hold Unicode code points
for characters (before shaping) and the shaped glyph output
(after shaping).
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>shape plans</emphasis>, which store the settings
that HarfBuzz will use when shaping a particular text
segment. Shape plans are not generally used by client
programs directly, but as we will see in a later chapter,
they are still valuable to understand.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="object-model-lifecycle">
<title>Object lifecycle management</title>
<para>
Each object type in HarfBuzz provides a
<function>create()</function> method. Some object types provide
additional variants of <function>create()</function> to handle
special cases or to speed up common tasks; those variants are
documented in the API reference. For example,
<function>hb_blob_create_from_file()</function> constructs a new
blob directly from the contents of a file.
</para>
<para>
All objects are created with an initial reference count of
<literal>1</literal>. Client programs can increase the reference
count on an object by calling its
<function>reference()</function> method. Whenever a client
program is finished with an object, it should call its
corresponding <function>destroy()</function> method. The destroy
method will decrease the reference count on the object and,
whenever the reference count reaches zero, it will also destroy
the object and free all of the associated memory.
</para>
<para>
All of HarfBuzz's object-lifecycle-management APIs are
thread-safe (unless you compiled HarfBuzz from source with the
<literal>HB_NO_MT</literal> configuration flag), even when the
object as a whole is not thread-safe.
It is also permissible to <function>reference()</function> or to
<function>destroy()</function> the <literal>NULL</literal>
value.
</para>
<para>
Some objects are thread-safe after they have been constructed
and set up. The general pattern is to
<function>create()</function> the object, make a few
<function>set_*()</function> calls to set up the
object, and then use it without further modification.
</para>
<para>
To ensure that such an object is not modified, client programs
can explicitly mark an object as immutable. HarfBuzz provides
<function>make_immutable()</function> methods to mark an object
as immutable and <function>is_immutable()</function> methods to
test whether or not an object is immutable. Attempts to use
setter functions on immutable objects will fail silently; see the API
Reference manual for specifics.
</para>
<para>
Note also that there are no "make mutable" methods. If client
programs need to alter an object previously marked as immutable,
they will need to make a duplicate of the original.
</para>
<para>
Finally, object constructors (and, indeed, as much of the
shaping API as possible) will never return
<literal>NULL</literal>. Instead, if there is an allocation
error, each constructor will return an “empty” object
singleton.
</para>
<para>
These empty-object singletons are inert and safe (although
typically useless) to pass around. This design choice avoids
having to check for <literal>NULL</literal> pointers all
throughout the code.
</para>
<para>
In addition, this “empty” object singleton can also be accessed
using the <function>get_empty()</function> method of the object
type in question.
</para>
</section>
<section id="object-model-user-data">
<title>User data</title>
<para>
To better integrate with client programs, HarfBuzz's objects
offer a "user data" mechanism that can be used to attach
arbitrary data to the object. User-data attachment can be
useful for tying the lifecycles of various pieces of data
together, or for creating language bindings.
</para>
<para>
Each object type has a <function>set_user_data()</function>
method and a <function>get_user_data()</function> method. The
<function>set_user_data()</function> methods take a client-provided
<literal>key</literal> and a pointer,
<literal>user_data</literal>, pointing to the data itself. Once
the key-data pair has been attached to the object, the
<function>get_user_data()</function> method can be called with
the key, returning the <function>user_data</function> pointer.
</para>
<para>
The <function>set_user_data()</function> methods also support an
optional <function>destroy</function> callback. Client programs
can set the <function>destroy</function> callback and receive
notification from HarfBuzz whenever the object is destructed.
</para>
<para>
Finally, each <function>set_user_data()</function> method allows
the client program to set a <literal>replace</literal> Boolean
indicating whether or not the function call should replace any
existing <literal>user_data</literal>
associated with the specified key.
</para>
</section>
<section id="object-model-blobs">
<title>Blobs</title>
<para>
While most of HarfBuzz's object types are specific to the
shaping process, <emphasis>blobs</emphasis> are somewhat
different.
</para>
<para>
Blobs are an abstraction desgined to negotiate lifecycle and
permissions for raw pieces of data. For example, when you load
the raw font data into memory and want to pass it to HarfBuzz,
you do so in a <literal>hb_blob_t</literal> wrapper.
</para>
<para>
This allows you to take advantage of HarffBuzz's
reference-counting and <function>destroy</function>
callbacks. If you allocated the memory for the data using
<function>malloc()</function>, you would create the blob using
</para>
<programlisting language="C">
hb_blob_create (data, length, HB_MEMORY_MODE_WRITABLE, NULL, free)
</programlisting>
<para>
That way, HarfBuzz will call <function>free()</function> on the
allocated memory whenever the blob drops its last reference and
is deconstructed. Consequently, the user code can stop worrying
about freeing memory and let the reference-counting machinery
take care of that.
</para>
</section>
</chapter>