This page discusses the values of the type attribute of the SVG paths within KanjiVG.

The type attribute specifies the shape of the stroke. It can be used to know how the stroke should be rendered.

The values of this attribute use the keys of Unicode's CJK Strokes.

The best documentation available on the meanings of these stroke types seems to be that found in Proposed additions to the CJK Strokes block of the UCS, and the explanation of the stroke types there mostly consists of a list of examples, so there is some remaining ambiguity about how best to use these.

In some cases these stroke types, in particular ㇁ (U+31C1), or ㇔ (U+31D4), may appear to be in error, but check the explanations below before suggesting changes.

Undocumented and unknown features, and notes on possible flaws in the data, are distinguished with a pale green background.

CJK Stroke T U+31C0
CJK Stroke WG U+31C1 This is used for the down stroke of 犭 and the lower right part of ⻖. Some fonts, including the default font used by KanjiVG's host, github.com, represent this shape as being almost identical to ㇓, CJK Stroke SP, so it may appear to be an error on a browser screen. However, this is the correct shape for 犭 and ⻖.
CJK Stroke XG U+31C2 This is used in, for example, for the long vertical stroke of 戈.
CJK Stroke SW U+31C4
CJK Stroke HZZ U+31C5 This relatively rare shape is used, for example, for stroke 15 of 麌.
CJK Stroke HZG U+31C6 This is used for the right side of 印 or 掏.
CJK Stroke HP U+31C7
CJK Stroke HZWG U+31C8 The examples given in the Unicode reference are 飞,风,瘋,九,几,气,虱
CJK Stroke SZWG U+31C9 This is used, for example, for the bottom part of 弓.
CJK Stroke HZZP U+31CB
CJK Stroke N U+31CF
CJK Stroke H U+31D0 This is used for horizontal lines, such as the top and bottom strokes of 西.
CJK Stroke S U+31D1
CJK Stroke P U+31D2
CJK Stroke SP U+31D3 This stroke is used for vertical strokes whose ends turn left.
CJK Stroke D U+31D4 This is used for a short dash. Although the usual form of this in fonts is a line slanting down to the right, the dash may slant either down and left, such as the left stroke of 心 or 灬, or down and right, such as the right strokes of 心 or 灬.
CJK Stroke HZ U+31D5 This is used for the upper right part of 口, or the middle upper stroke of 巨.
CJK Stroke HG U+31D6
CJK Stroke SZ U+31D7
CJK Stroke ST U+31D9 This is used for the bottom left of 衣 or 食.
CJK Stroke SG U+31DA
CJK Stroke PD U+31DB This stroke type is used for the left vertical stroke of 女, or kanji which contain 女 as a component, or for 巛 and kanji containing a 巛 element.
CJK Stroke PZ U+31DC
CJK Stroke SZZ U+31DE This rare stroke type is only used in the character 亞, and characters such as 壼 which contain 亞 as a component.
CJK Stroke SWG U+31DF
CJK Stroke HZZZG U+31E1
For reasons which have not been documented, this was used in some characters such as 蠣 or 寓 to represent one of the lower strokes.

In some cases another field consisting of alphabetical letters. These letters refer to a set of stroke types which Ulrich Apel designed but has not documented. The letters seem to indicate the intersections of the ends of strokes with other strokes. See issue 324 on Github for more details.

a
End touches middle part of other stroke
b
End touches end of other stroke
c
Unknown
v
Unknown

Where the value has two possibilities, a slash is used to separate them. For example, the bottom dash in 冬 (fuyu, "winter") may slant either upwards or downwards, so this is represented by kvg:type="㇔/㇀" in the KanjiVG source file.

CJK Strokes which are not used

The following elements of the CJK Strokes block are not used in KanjiVG:

CJK Stroke HPWG U+31CC This stroke pattern is used to represent the right side of ⻖ and related shapes when it is written as two strokes, per the Chinese convention. KanjiVG always uses three strokes to write ⻖, with the right side broken into upper and lower pieces, so this pattern is not used by KanjiVG.
CJK Stroke HZT U+31CA The main use of this seems to be to represent the 言 component known as gonben in simplified Chinese characters like 计, or other simplified Chinese forms such as so it is not very useful for Japanese.
CJK Stroke HZZZ U+31CE This rare pattern seems to only be used in the Chinese drawing of 凸. Japanese uses a different stroke pattern for this character.
CJK Stroke Q U+31E3 This only occurs in characters which are not part of KanjiVG, such as 㔔.
㇃ (Used for second stroke of 心. KanjiVG seems to use ㇟ for this.)
㇍ (Used for upper right of 投 etc. KanjiVG seems to use ㇈ for this.)
㇘ (Used in some stroke orders of 肅)
㇝ (Used for printed forms of the right stroke of 八 or 入)
㇠ (KanjiVG uses ㇈ instead of this)
㇢ (Rare pattern used by 乄)