[cairo] add solid/gradient pattern info getters

[Carl Worth]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:03:09 -0700, "Vladimir Vukicevic" wrote:
>
> Eh.. I'd still prefer the API I suggested, but I don't care enough
> about it to argue for it :)  So, sure, though I'll probably do
> get_color_stop_count and get_color_stop_rgba.

Using "count" would be creating a new word for the API, (there's
nothing wrong with new words, but we should take some care in creating
them).

We've been using a num_<things> convention in the implementation quite
a bit, but that has mostly managed to avoid coming out in the API. It
does appear in one place, but not a function name, (the num_data
member of cairo_path_t). [We do also have similar "num_"-style naming
for for parameter names in several functions, but those names are
obviously not part of the API.]

The proposal above does have two advantages: the two related functions
sort next to each other, and we avoid having both "color_stop" and its
plural "color_stops" in the API.

Plural avoidance seems quite important, as made evident by a case like
dash and dashes. We're kinder if we can avoid forcing cairo API users
to memorize English pluralization rules. [It looks like so far we're
OK in this regard. The only plurals that I notice in the API,
(extents, metrics, and options), never appear in singular form.]

So I guess I'm coming down in favor of "_count" even though it will
take me some effort to get used to the new style, (and start changing
things in the implementation to go along with it).

-Carl
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