Are there any OpenType font files designed to test parsing code paths?

1
votes

I've been building a general-purpose, OpenType ".otf"/".ttf" file parsing library that must parse at least some of the more complex tables, such as the GPOS and GSUB table. I've been using various existing OpenType font files against the parser to flush the bugs. So far so good, although it is a non-trivial amount of work to support the spec in its entirety. Mostly because many of the OpenType font file's tables, sub-tables, and even lower-level data structures have multiple formats.

But any given font file makes use of only a subset of these myriad formats. I have found the spec often to be confusing, so it's hard to get the parsing code correct. Testing is essential.

So ... is there a font file, or collection of font files, available (free or for sale) that has been designed expressly not to be a working font but rather to exercise as many OpenType parsing code paths as possible?

I've scoured the web, looked at Adobe's FDK, etc., etc., but have come up empty.

2
parsingfontsopentype

2 Answers

1
votes

I'm curious to know why you need to reimplement these :-). Feel free to contact me offline.

I suggest trying the following fonts:

  • IranNastaliq and other Nastaliq fonts,

  • Indic fonts, like the Lohit family for example,

  • Any script fonts you may find.

A good collection for mass testing would be googlefontdirectory:

https://code.google.com/p/googlefontdirectory/

0
votes

I don't know any expressly designed for that purpose, but there's a bunch of OpenType fonts that might be useful for this at sourceforge, including Adobe's Source Sans Pro and Source Code Pro family that you'll probably already know and some arabic which might be interesting too. You can find the font source files in Adobe's github.