RE: [Devel] extending FT_Stream to handle moveable memory

[Graham Asher]

<<<<<<
Hi Graham,

Graham Asher wrote:
> As part of my work for Artifex, Inc., to connect FreeType with GhostScript
I
> am going to extend FT_Stream so that it can handle blocks of memory that
can
> move around between calls to FreeType functions. GhostScript stores
TrueType
> font file images in moveable memory. These changes will enable
FT_Open_Face,
> which takes an FT_Stream object as one of its arguments, to handle such
> fonts.
>
> Please let me know if there is already a way of doing this, which I very
> much doubt. I am aware that I could implement this in a much more
cumbersome
> way using a special FT_StreamRec_::read function, but I don't want to pay
> the performance cost of allocating and freeing heap memory when I could
> easily get a pointer to the actual memory.
>
> You'll be pleased to know that the changes will be minimal and should have
> no impact on performance.
>

Thanks, w're looking forwards to seeing your implementation. By the way,
do you plan to support "movable" "extracted frames" ?
>>>>>>

No, it's very simple indeed and preserves the idea that a frame gives
pointer access to a block of memory. The base pointer is updated only when
entering a frame. This design may change as I get further into the
implementation.

More on C++: my current estimate is that the fact that FreeType and
GhostScript are in C, not C++, is slowing development roughly threefold.

Graham Asher