pango-layout-auto-dir (layout)

layout -- a pango-layout object
auto-dir -- if true, compute the bidirectional base direction from the layout's contents

The function pango-layout-auto-dir gets whether to calculate the bidirectional base direction for the layout according to the contents of the layout.

The function (setf pango-layout-auto-dir) sets whether to calculate the bidirectional base direction for the layout according to the contents of the layout. When this flag is on (the default), then paragraphs in layout that begin with strong right-to-left characters (Arabic and Hebrew principally), will have right-to-left layout, paragraphs with letters from other scripts will have left-to-right layout. Paragraphs with only neutral characters get their direction from the surrounding paragraphs.

When false, the choice between left-to-right and right-to-left layout is done according to the base direction of the layout's Pango context. (See the function pango-context-base-dir).

When the auto-computed direction of a paragraph differs from the base direction of the context, the interpretation of PANGO_ALIGN_LEFT and PANGO_ALIGN_RIGHT are swapped.