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https://github.com/propensive/hieroglyph

Calculate Unicode character display widths in Scala
https://github.com/propensive/hieroglyph

character-encodings character-metadata characters encodings scala unicode unicode-metadata

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Calculate Unicode character display widths in Scala

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# Hieroglyph



__Tools for working with characters in Scala__



Hieroglyph provides facilities for working with characters, in particular, by providing typesafe

support for different character encodings, and utilizing additional Unicode metadata.



## Features



- specification of character encodings

- warnings issued if using an encoding which may not be available

- provides additional character metadata from the Unicode database

- facilitates accurate text width calculations, particularly for East Asian scripts



## Availability



## Getting Started



### Character Display Width



Hieroglyph provides an extension method, `displayWidth`, on `Char` which will

return the amount of space the glyph for that character will take up, when

rendered in a mono-spaced font.



Unsurprisingly, this will usually be `1`, but many characters in alphabets that

are not based on the Latin Alphabet will need two normal character widths of

space when rendered.



For example, compare,

```scala

'x'.displayWidth   // returns 1

'好'.displayWidth  // returns 2

```



However, calculating the width of a character (and, in particular a string of

characters) will be much slower if every character must be checked individually,

and totalled, when the `length` field of a string can provide the same value in

constant (and fast) time, for strings which are known not to contain any "wide"

characters.



[Gossamer](https://github.com/propensive/gossamer/) provides a corresponding

`displayWidth` extension method on all text-like types, which calculates the

display width of the entire string by summing its character widths, or, with

`textMetrics.uniform` in scope, simply returns the `length` value.



Therefore, methods which need to perform text width calculations can use either

a `uniform` mode or an `eastAsianScripts` mode, depending on the contextual

value imported from the `textMetrics` package.



## Status



Hieroglyph is classified as __fledgling__. For reference, Soundness projects are

categorized into one of the following five stability levels:



- _embryonic_: for experimental or demonstrative purposes only, without any guarantees of longevity

- _fledgling_: of proven utility, seeking contributions, but liable to significant redesigns

- _maturescent_: major design decisions broady settled, seeking probatory adoption and refinement

- _dependable_: production-ready, subject to controlled ongoing maintenance and enhancement; tagged as version `1.0.0` or later

- _adamantine_: proven, reliable and production-ready, with no further breaking changes ever anticipated



Projects at any stability level, even _embryonic_ projects, can still be used,

as long as caution is taken to avoid a mismatch between the project's stability

level and the required stability and maintainability of your own project.



Hieroglyph is designed to be _small_. Its entire source code currently consists

of 393 lines of code.



## Building



Hieroglyph will ultimately be built by Fury, when it is published. In the

meantime, two possibilities are offered, however they are acknowledged to be

fragile, inadequately tested, and unsuitable for anything more than

experimentation. They are provided only for the necessity of providing _some_

answer to the question, "how can I try Hieroglyph?".



1. *Copy the sources into your own project*

   

   Read the `fury` file in the repository root to understand Hieroglyph's build

   structure, dependencies and source location; the file format should be short

   and quite intuitive. Copy the sources into a source directory in your own

   project, then repeat (recursively) for each of the dependencies.



   The sources are compiled against the latest nightly release of Scala 3.

   There should be no problem to compile the project together with all of its

   dependencies in a single compilation.



2. *Build with [Wrath](https://github.com/propensive/wrath/)*



   Wrath is a bootstrapping script for building Hieroglyph and other projects in

   the absence of a fully-featured build tool. It is designed to read the `fury`

   file in the project directory, and produce a collection of JAR files which can

   be added to a classpath, by compiling the project and all of its dependencies,

   including the Scala compiler itself.

   

   Download the latest version of

   [`wrath`](https://github.com/propensive/wrath/releases/latest), make it

   executable, and add it to your path, for example by copying it to

   `/usr/local/bin/`.



   Clone this repository inside an empty directory, so that the build can

   safely make clones of repositories it depends on as _peers_ of `hieroglyph`.

   Run `wrath -F` in the repository root. This will download and compile the

   latest version of Scala, as well as all of Hieroglyph's dependencies.



   If the build was successful, the compiled JAR files can be found in the

   `.wrath/dist` directory.



## Contributing



Contributors to Hieroglyph are welcome and encouraged. New contributors may like

to look for issues marked

[beginner](https://github.com/propensive/hieroglyph/labels/beginner).



We suggest that all contributors read the [Contributing

Guide](/contributing.md) to make the process of contributing to Hieroglyph

easier.



Please __do not__ contact project maintainers privately with questions unless

there is a good reason to keep them private. While it can be tempting to

repsond to such questions, private answers cannot be shared with a wider

audience, and it can result in duplication of effort.



## Author



Hieroglyph was designed and developed by Jon Pretty, and commercial support and

training on all aspects of Scala 3 is available from [Propensive

OÜ](https://propensive.com/).



## Name



Hieroglyphics are elaborate characters, whose meaning requires interpretation, while _Hieroglyph_ is a library

which provides encodings to translate between characters and their binary representations.



In general, Soundness project names are always chosen with some rationale,

however it is usually frivolous. Each name is chosen for more for its

_uniqueness_ and _intrigue_ than its concision or catchiness, and there is no

bias towards names with positive or "nice" meanings—since many of the libraries

perform some quite unpleasant tasks.



Names should be English words, though many are obscure or archaic, and it

should be noted how willingly English adopts foreign words. Names are generally

of Greek or Latin origin, and have often arrived in English via a romance

language.



## Logo



The logo is a stylised rendering of the [Unicode](https://home.unicode.org/) logo.



## License



Hieroglyph is copyright © 2025 Jon Pretty & Propensive OÜ, and

is made available under the [Apache 2.0 License](/license.md).