Re: [ft-devel] Porting to C#/Mono

[Trevor Sundberg]

Thanks for getting back to me (I saw the email bounced when it was sent to address@hidden, so I thought it was lost!). I'm actually creating the C# version for a lot of the same reasons as Graham (unlike the Windows Phone, the Xbox with XNA can still only run pure C#). I've currently implemented most of the major structures, and I'm also reading 'The design of FreeType 2' which is incredibly helpful. It's not a direct port as I'm using C# features (namespaces instead of FT_, inheritance/interfaces for Module/Driver, etc). Overall it doesn't look like it will be too hard, though I didn't realize TTF was actually a byte code interpreter :P

Best Regards,
Trevor Sundberg

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 1:33 AM, Graham Asher <address@hidden> wrote:

It may be of interest to know that some time ago I successfully got FreeType working as a pure .Net assembly - in other words, I compiled it as C++/CLI, which made it usable with general .Net applications. Of course, pure compilation is not necessary when using native-code assemblies, so this is probably of academic interest only, but may give some general guidance. There were just two problems, easily overcome; (i) the use of 'generic' as an identifier (e.g., in FT_FaceRec) - I changed them all to _generic to avoid conflicts with a C++/CLI keyword); and (ii) the use of setjmp/longjmp; I replaced these with the returning of error codes.

What I was trying to do (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) was to create a pure .Net assembly for CartoType, my map rendering library, for use on platforms like Windows Phone 7 which don't allow native assemblies or indeed any native code. That was impossible because (I believe) I had not removed dependencies on native run-time libraries; and now the task has been rendered unnecessary by the release of Windows Phone 8, which supports native C or C++.

Graham Asher
CartoType Ltd.

On 13/11/2012 08:12, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

I was wondering what license concerns there might be over porting
FreeType 2 to C#.

Just use the same licenses as FreeType, and you are done.

I was also wondering if there would be a recommended path to
porting.  Currently I planned on implementing the TTF driver to test
the port, and implement other formats as the need grows.

This sounds like a good idea.

If you are done please tell us!


     Werner

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