Blend2D
2D Vector Graphics Engine
Blend2D C API structs and functions exported as extern "C"
(C API).
We do not document most C API functions as they are called from C++ wrappers, which are documented and should be used as a reference. The most important thing in using C API is to understand how lifetime of instances is managed.
Each type that requires initialization provides bl[...]Init
, 'bl[...]Destroy', and bl[...]Reset
C API functions. Init/Destroy are called by C++ constructors and destructors on C++ side and must be used the same way by C users. Although these functions return BLResult it's guaranteed the result is always BL_SUCCESS - the return value is only provided for consistency and possible tail calling.
The following example should illustrate how Init
and Destroy
works:
Some init functions may provide shortcuts for the most used scenarios that merge initialization and resource allocation into a single function:
It's worth knowing that default initialization in Blend2D costs nothing and no resources are allocated, thus initialization never fails and in theory default initialized objects don't have to be destroyed as they don't hold any data that would have to be deallocated (however never do that in practice).
There is a distinction between 'destroy()' and 'reset()' functionality. Destroy would destroy the object and put it into a non-reusable state. Thus if the object is used by accident it should crash on null-pointer access. On the contrary, resetting the object with 'reset()' explicitly states that the instance will be reused so 'reset()' basically destroys the object and puts it into its default constructed state for further use. This means that it's not needed to explicitly call 'destroy()' on instance that was reset, and it also is not needed for a default constructed instance. However, we recommend to not count on this behavior and to always properly initialize and destroy Blend2D objects.
The following example should explain how init/reset can avoid destroy:
Array functionality is provided by BLArrayCore in C API and wrapped by BLArray<T> template in C++ API.
C API users must call either generic functions with Item
suffix or correct specialized functions in case of typed arrays. For example if you create a BLArray<uint32_t>
in C then you can only modify it through functions that have either U32
or Item
suffix. Arrays of signed types are treated as arrays of unsigned types at API level as there is no difference between them from an implementation perspective.
File read/write functionality is provided by BLFileCore in C API and wrapped by BLFile in C++ API.
Functions that initialize and manipulate BLMatrix2D content.