[Wish] "Dump tables as hex data" option in TTX

There should be a “Dump tables as hex data” option in TTX.

My actual solution is, to temporarily rename some py files in fontTools\ttLib\tables\ with the help of batch files like these:

@echo off
call FDKvars

for %%f in (%tab%*_?_*.*) do (
if not %%~nf.py==C_F_F_.py if not %%~nf.py==_g_l_y_f.py if not %%~nf.py==_h_e_a_d.py if not %%~nf.py==_h_h_e_a.py if not %%~nf.py==_l_o_c_a.py if not %%~nf.py==_m_a_x_p.py if not %%~nf.py==_p_o_s_t.py if exist "%%~dpnf.pyc" del "%%~dpnf.pyc"
if not %%~nf.py==C_F_F_.py if not %%~nf.py==_g_l_y_f.py if not %%~nf.py==_h_e_a_d.py if not %%~nf.py==_h_h_e_a.py if not %%~nf.py==_l_o_c_a.py if not %%~nf.py==_m_a_x_p.py if not %%~nf.py==_p_o_s_t.py if exist "%%~dpnf.py" ren "%%~dpnf.py" "%%~nf.pyNotHex"
)
@echo most tables in Hex-Mode now
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 >NUL

and back to decompile mode:

@echo off
call FDKvars

for %%f in (%tab%*_?_*.*) do (
if exist "%%~dpnf.pyc" del "%%~dpnf.pyc"
if exist "%%~dpnf.pyNotHex" ren "%%~dpnf.pyNotHex" "%%~nf.py"
)
@echo all tables in Decompile-Mode now
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 >NUL

The TTX command for that would look like this

TTX -s (split all tables in decompile mode) -thex (except from the following ones, which you put out as hex data)

---

And if you want to split all tables in hex mode:

TTX -s (split all tables) -hex (in hex mode)

[justvanrossum]

So the reason you want this feature is because some years ago TTX failed to dump a GPOS table. Or maybe the table was corrupt. And you don’t 100% trust TTX. But you don’t give us any leads or even reasons, so you’re going by pure speculation at this point and are pretty much spreading rumors.

In short:

• If FontTools/TTX fails to dump a table, and the table is not corrupt, it’s a bug and we should know about it
• If FontTools/TTX damages font data in any way, it’s a bug and we should know about it.

Adding a hex feature is not helping any of this.

[HinTak]

Actually I added this feature to the Font Validator ( https://github.com/HinTak/Font-Validator ) a month ago and not pushed out to the public branch yet. The reason why I added this was that people was talking about Windows 10 starting to using the - antique?- Truetype “meta” table in new ways. So I extended the generic “unknown” table to support hex dumps, just so I can look at the non-OT table and see what’s inside.