Re: [ft-devel] [GSoC] Extending the CF2 interpreter

[Ewald Hew]

Thanks for the reply!..

> I'm not familiar with the FreeType Type 1 code, but Adobe has a combined
> CFF+Type 1 interpreter where the "PostScript stack" is implemented by a
> simple array of 3 Fixed elements. I see a comment about a change to "skip
> the unique id check", if that helps.

..However, I am unable to locate this. A simple array makes sense, but
how was the limit of three decided? I don't have data for any fonts
that might call an unhandled othersubr, but it seems they might pass
in more arguments than that.

> The large number operator (255) expects small Type 1 values to be integers,
> converted to Fixed by << 16 (thus zero fraction). Large values are converted
> to Fixed by a subsequent div operator, and there is no shift when the
> numerator is pushed on the stack. CFF values are expected to already be
> Fixed, so there is no shift.

For CFF, small values (not 255 op) are stored in the stack as integers
and large ones interpreted as Fixed. Now for the old Type 1
interpreter, small values are stored as Fixed and large values are
stored as integers but are immediately converted to Fixed by the
subsequent `div'. However, `div' expects two Fixed arguments.

This means in handling Type 1, large values have a possible limit
issue when converted to Fixed by << 16. I'll need to extend `div' to
accept unscaled integers if `large_int' is set. My concern is that
`div' might be abused in Type 1 fonts, expecting an integer result for
use in indexing later. This would pass in the old interpreter but is
not allowed in the new one. Again, I have no reference to actual
fonts, so I don't know if this is a real problem.

On the other hand, this means there should be no other issues with
number format between Type 1 or CFF ops, as long as the operands are
pushed correctly as above. Do correct me if I'm wrong.


Ewald.