[][src]Crate fontdb

fontdb is a simple, in-memory font database with CSS-like queries.

Features

  • The database can load fonts from files, directories and raw data (Vec<u8>).
  • The database can match a font using CSS-like queries. See Database::query.
  • The database can try to load system fonts. Currently, this is implemented by scanning predefined directories. The library does not interact with the system API.
  • Provides a unique ID for each font face.

Non-goals

  • Advanced font properties querying.
    The database provides only storage and matching capabilities. For font properties querying you can use ttf-parser.

  • A font fallback mechanism.
    This library can be used to implement a font fallback mechanism, but it doesn't implement one.

  • Application's global database.
    The database doesn't use static, therefore it's up to the caller where it should be stored.

  • Font types support other than TrueType.

Font vs Face

A font is a collection of font faces. Therefore, a font face is a subset of a font. A simple font (*.ttf/*.otf) usually contains a single font face, but a font collection (*.ttc) can contain multiple font faces.

fontdb stores and matches font faces, not fonts. Therefore, after loading a font collection with 5 faces (for example), the database will be populated with 5 FaceInfo objects, all of which will be pointing to the same file or binary data.

Performance

The database performance is largely limited by the storage itself. We are using ttf-parser, so the parsing should not be a bottleneck.

On my machine with Samsung SSD 860 and Gentoo Linux, it takes ~20ms to load 1906 font faces (most of them are from Google Noto collection) with a hot disk cache and ~860ms with a cold one.

Safety

The library relies on memory-mapped files, which is inherently unsafe. But we do not keep such files open forever. Instead, we are memory-mapping files only when needed.

Structs

Database

A font database.

FaceInfo

A single font face info.

ID

A unique per database face ID.

Query

A database query.

Weight

Specifies the weight of glyphs in the font, their degree of blackness or stroke thickness.

Enums

Family

A font family.

Source

A font source.

Stretch

A font width.

Style

Allows italic or oblique faces to be selected.