[bug] Layer names do not support Chinese characters.

[libaineu2004]

1.environment
klayout v0.30.7
windows 10 x64

2.read dxf, the Chinese text is garbled.

[d-m-bailey]

@libaineu2004 What text are you trying to display?

I can manually rename the layers to Chinese characters (Japanese).

If you can manually edit the layer names to Chinese, but can't read them in, then it may be a file I/O problem.

[libaineu2004]

@libaineu2004 What text are you trying to display?

I can manually rename the layers to Chinese characters (Japanese).

If you can manually edit the layer names to Chinese, but can't read them in, then it may be a file I/O problem.

Manual editing is possible; however, the changes are lost when the DXF file is reopened. The manual renaming was not saved.

[d-m-bailey]

Ok, so this may be a dxf import related issue.

[Kazzz-S]

Hi,

Manual editing is possible; however, the changes are lost when the DXF file is reopened. The manual renaming was not saved.

In my experiments, behaviors are a bit different, as follows.
Nothing is weird to me.

---

1. Environment and sample files

• KLayout 0.30.10 / QCad Pro 3.32.9
• macOS Tahoe 26.5.2 (M4 chip)
• Sample files ===> GitHub2404.zip

2. Generation flow of different image files

• KLayout (new design) ===> gh2404-In.dxf

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> QCad Pro ===> gh2404-01.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-02.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-Out.gds ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-03.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-Out.oas ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-04.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-Out.dxf ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-05.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-Out.dxf ===> QCad Pro ===> gh2404-06.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout (edited layer names) ===> gh2404-07.png ===> gh2404-Out2.oas ===> KLayout ===> gh2404-08.png

• gh2404-In.dxf ===> KLayout (edited layer names) ===> gh2404-09.png ===> gh2404-Out2.dxf ===> QCad Pro ===> gh2404-10.png

3. Encoding of the DXF files

MacMiniKS{sekigawa} GitHub2404 (1)% nkf --guess *.dxf
gh2404-In.dxf: UTF-8 (LF)
gh2404-Out.dxf: UTF-8 (LF)
gh2404-Out2.dxf: UTF-8 (LF)

4. My understandings

1. A GDS2 file cannot carry a file name string. So it is omitted during export, and only the layer/datatype combination is stored.
2. An OASIS file can carry a file name string; however, it must be 7-bit ASCII.
   Therefore, any Asian character in UTF-8 is replaced with an asterisk.
   In my data, a layer name having 7 Chinese characters is represented by '*******'.
   One, two, and three with '*', '**', and '***', respectively.

[libaineu2004]

I found that it is indeed related to the file encoding.
The original DXF was in ANSI format, and layer names appeared as garbled text when opened in KLayout;
however, after I saved the DXF as UTF-8, it displayed correctly when opened again.

1.demo.dxf with ANSI

2.demo.dxf with UTF-8

3.However, when I renamed the layer and saved the file, the change didn't actually take effect; upon reopening the file, the layer name had reverted to the original.

[libaineu2004]

environment
klayout v0.30.7
windows 10 x64

However, when I renamed the layer and saved the file, the change didn't actually take effect; upon reopening the file, the layer name had reverted to the original.

[d-m-bailey]

@libaineu2004 once you have the layers defined as you want, try saving the layer information with File -> Save Layer Properties

Then if you load a file that has unreadable layer names, user File -> Load Layer Properties to restore the layer names.

[libaineu2004]

"File -> Save Layer Properties", we can save the name of the layer.
But it's too troublesome. A new file (*.lyp) has been added.
I originally thought that the "Save" function could directly modify the dxf file.
Only in this way we can use other CAD software to interpret the names of the new layers.