GlyphNameFormatter

A system for generating glyph name lists from official Unicode data.

Unicode has long and descriptive names for each character.
Font editors need glyph names to easily identify the glyphs, short, unique, can't use spaces, non-ascii characters.
Raw Unicode names are unsuitable for this purpose in font editors
Font editors use their own lists that map names to unicode values.
So this system parses, generates and tweaks.

Glyph Name Formatted Unicode List Release 0.6 (ɣNUFL)

Release 0.1 offers (almost) the same coverage as the Adobe Glyph Dictionary, AGD.txt
Release 0.2 offers more ranges from Unicode 10.0.0.
Release 0.3 offers more ranges from Unicode 11.0.0.
Release 0.4 fixes a bug in the conflict analysis. Better names for all.
Release 0.5 Improved support for Georgian names.
Release 0.6 Adds Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols, housekeeping

Contributions

This release is not meant to be final. Many ranges have basic coverage but could be improved. Some Unicode names are wrong and then get translated wrong. The list does not claim authority or completeness.

If you find things wrong and would like to share this insight, we're accepting comments, open an issue. If you see how the system works we will also gladly consider pull requests. If you would like to see certain ranges supported, let us know.

This version acknowledges the help by Frederik, Just, Adam, Daniel, Bahman and Ilya.

Using conversion functions

After all the processing is done, the lists can be used with a couple of convenient functions.

u2n(value) Unicode value to glyphname
n2u(name) Glyphname to Unicode value
u2c(value) Unicode value to Unicode category
n2c(name) Glyphname to Unicode category
u2r(value) Unicode value to range name
n2N(name) name to uppercase
N2n(name) name to lowercase
u2U(uni) unicode to uppercase unicode
U2u(uni) unicode to lowercase unicode

Naming guidelines

Glyph names should, as much as possible, only have script tags to disambiguate.
Detect when script specific prefix or suffix is necessary
Keep script prefix or suffix short
Some scripts already have a preference for pre- or suffix.
Some names look better with camelCase.

Generating lists

Run data/buildFlatUnicodeList.py to download the current (or previous) data from Unicode.org. This is a large file. This script downloads and processes the data to a more practical size, stored in data/flatUnicode.txt.

Run data/buildJoiningTypesList.py to download the current data from Unicode.org. This stored in a separate file, data/joiningTypes.txt

Run exporters/exportFlatLists.py to generate a text file with pairs, exclusively with the available range processors. The results are in names/glyphNamesToUnicode.txt

Run test/buildRanges.py to make all the name lists. They will be deposited in names/ranges. There will be other methods and other lists, but for now this is the place to make things. You can also run each of the range scripts in rangeProcessors/ and they will print a nice readable table with the processed name, unicode value, original name. There is also a column for names from the Adobe AGL if it has a different name for that entry.

Run exporters/analyseConflicts.py to get an overview of all name clashes and how they are addressed. The results are in a text file in data/conflict.txt

Range Processors

Given the rather large task of handling thousands of exceptions and tweaks, the package has a modules that each take care of a single unicode range. This makes it easier to work in different places at once. Also testing is easier.

The GlyphName class is initialised with a single unicode number. It then finds the unicode name. Based on the range name it tries to find a module with a corresponding name in rangeProcessors/. If it finds such a module it will run the process() function and apply it. The process() function will try to transform the unicode name by editing or replacing parts of the name.

Each range processor has a handy debugginh print function that will show an overview of the unicode value, the generated name, a comparison with the AGD name and the unicode names.

On the internals

GlyphName.uniNumber integer, the unicode number we're working on.
GlyphName.uniName string, the original unicode character name
GlyphName.uniNameProcessed string, the edited name.
GlyphName.suffixParts list of name parts that are added at the end. Please use:
GlyphName.suffix(namePart) use this method to add name parts to the suffix list.
GlyphName.replace(oldPattern, [newPattern]) If no newPattern is given it will assume it is "" and delete oldPattern
GlyphName.edit(oldPattern, [*suffixes]) This is more elaborate: it will remove oldPattern from the name, and then append any number of suffix strings to GlyphName.suffixParts. When the processing is done all strings in suffixParts are appended to the end of the glyph name.

LettError/glyphNameFormatter