utf8Glyphs($text) works on local machine but not on the server

[ahmadyousefdev]

Hello, first of all thanks for this amazing service that you are providing.

I have a strange problem caused on my server; I tried this utf8Glyphs($text) on my local machine and got an amazing result:

but on the server i got an unexpected result:

searched for a solution everywhere but it did not work on my server at all, even tried this $arabic->utf8Glyphs($text, 30, true, true) it works on my local machine using laravel valet . but on the server it does not. Is there an extension that i need to install or anything that i need to fix on the server?

[ahmadyousefdev]

Ok so a weird thing happened and i don't know why it did, removing utf8Glyphs() from the code in the server made the text render right. is there an explanation for that?

[khaled-alshamaa]

Hi @ahmadyousefdev, it appears that the GD library on your server is configured with libraqm support. In this case, preprocessing your Arabic text with utf8Glyphs() is unnecessary, as it would reverse the letter order twice (once by our function and again by Raqm's internal processing) resulting in incorrect left-to-right rendering. Instead, pass your Arabic text directly to GD functions such as imagettftext() without applying utf8Glyphs().

For more information, please check the following issue #76

I am interested in collaborating if you have time to explore a more concrete and automated method for detecting Raqm support in the GD library on the hosting machine running your PHP script. I attempted the following approach:

if (!gd_info()['RAQM Support'] ?? false) {
    $text = $Arabic->utf8Glyphs($text);
}

Unfortunately, the gd_info() PHP function does not provide any indication of Raqm support, as confirmed by @khaledhosny, one of the Raqm developers.

[khaled-alshamaa]

Can you please check if the phpinfo() output on your hosting server has any mention of Raqm or even HarfBuzz libraries? If yes, then we can bypass the gd_info() limitation and try something like the following code snippet:

function isGDRaqmEnabled()
{
    ob_start();
    phpinfo();
    $info = ob_get_clean();

    return (stripos($info, 'Raqm') !== false);
}

if(!isGDRaqmEnabled()) {
    $text = $Arabic->utf8Glyphs($text);
}

[ahmadyousefdev]

Hello Mr. Khaled,

I checked phpinfo(), but I couldn’t find any mentions of Raqm or HarfBuzz. However, after adding the function you provided, I got the following result:

{"GDRaqmEnabled": true}

I will investigate further and update you accordingly.

Is it possible that this behavior is influenced by the locale settings, particularly having ar_SA.UTF-8 set in LC_CTYPE or LANG. Additionally, my mbstring settings are configured as UTF-8, which might also play a role?

Let me know if you have any insights, and I’ll continue exploring.

[khaled-alshamaa]

@ahmadyousefdev, If the function returned true, that means the word "Raqm" should be present somewhere in the phpinfo() output, even if it's not specifically under the GD library section. I recommend searching for "Raqm" again in the full phpinfo() output to confirm its presence.

[khaled-alshamaa]

@ahmadyousefdev, any update?

[ahmadyousefdev]

@khaled-alshamaa
Hello Mr. Khaled, I searched again in the phpinfo, but "raqm" is not present anywhere. I sent the phpinfo to your email if you are interested.