Re: AtkText attributes

[Peter Korn <peter korn sun com>]

Hi Brian,

> > ...
> > >    I call the function saying I am interested in the text from 18-21.  I 
> > >    am returned perhaps an array of two structures which have the
> > >    following info:
> > > 
> > >       struct[0]->attribute = font
> > >       struct[0]->value     = times
> > >       struct[0]->start     = 0
> > >       struct[0]->end       = 26
> > >       struct[1]->attribute = style
> > >       struct[1]->value     = italics
> > >       struct[1]->start     = 11
> > >       struct[1]->end       = 21
> > > 
> > >    Using this data it is very easy for me to see what attributes apply to 
> > >    the text that I am interested in.  I can quickly see that the font 
> > >    attribute applies to all of the text between 18-21 and that the italics 
> > >    style applies to just 18-21.
> > > 
> > >    Does this seem like an overly burdened interface to you?
> > 
> > Your approach returns an array of unknown size that has to be allocated and 
> > thende-allocated.  When if we've got a ransom letter, every character a 
> > different font (or some other attribute).  I ask for a range [0-500].  I now 
> > get a huge struct back.  Especially again in the Java case, where we don't 
> > support range info, every situation will look like a ransom letter.
> 
> Isn't this the same with your proposal too?  Your example above where the
> "attrStruct returned would give you the information "font times, bold, italic,
> 12-point" would also require an array of name,value structures wouldn't it?
> Or are you proposing returning a string that has all the name value pairs
> separated by commas?  I mean you could return the range info this way too.
> "font times start end, style bold start end, style italic start end" would
> similiarly avoid requiring a structure that needs allocation/deallocation.
> Perhaps I'm missing something here.

Ok.  I'm suggesting we return an attribute struct that looks more or less like
this.

  GetAttributeStruct {
   int startIndex;
   int endIndex;
   boolean isBold;
   boolean isItalic;
   ...
   char *fontName;
   int (or maybe char *) fontSize;  // char * if we deal with fractional nos.
   char *attributeStr;              // full string form, including attrs not
 }                                     in our boolean list

Yes we're returning a struct, but it's one that can be allocated on the stack by
the caller.  We're not malloc-ing an array of potentially very large size.


Does this proposal make more sense now?


Peter