gcc/libstdc++-v3/docs/html/explanations.html
Phil Edwards c6c222a89a explanations.html: New file.
2001-07-09  Phil Edwards  <pme@sources.redhat.com>

	* docs/html/explanations.html:  New file.
	* docs/html/configopts.html:  Link to it to provide more notes
	on cstdio.  Minor markup and spacing fixes.
	* docs/html/27_io/howto.html:  Talk about sync_with_stdio.

From-SVN: r43868
2001-07-09 19:37:01 +00:00

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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
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<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="pme@sources.redhat.com (Phil Edwards)">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="libstdc++, libstdc++-v3, GCC, g++">
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Explanatory notes about libstdc++-v3.">
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="vi and eight fingers">
<TITLE>Explanatory notes about libstdc++-v3 design</TITLE>
<LINK REL=StyleSheet HREF="lib3styles.css">
<!-- $Id: configopts.html,v 1.10 2001/04/20 08:59:25 bkoz Exp $ -->
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<H1 CLASS="centered"><A NAME="top">Explanatory notes about libstdc++-v3
design</A></H1>
<P>The latest version of this document is always available at
<A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/explanations.html">
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/explanations.html</A>.
</P>
<P>To the <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/">libstdc++-v3 homepage</A>.
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<HR>
<A NAME="cstdio"><H3>&quot;I/O packages&quot;, <TT>--enable-cstdio</TT></H3></A>
<P>In addition to all the nifty things which C++ can do for I/O, its library
also includes all of the I/O capabilites of C. Making them work together
can be a challenge, not only
<A HREF="27_io/howto.html#8">for the programmer</A> but for the
implementors as well.
</P>
<P>There are two ways to do a C++ library: the cool way, and the easy way.
More specifically, the cool-but-easy-to-get-wrong way, and the
easy-to-guarantee-correct-behavior way. For 3.0, the easy way is used.
</P>
<P>Choosing 'stdio' is the easy way. It builds a C++ library which forwards
all operations to the C library. Many of the C++ I/O functions are
specified in the standard 'as if' they called a certain C function; the
easiest way to get it correct is to actually call that function. The
disadvantage is that the C++ code will run slower (fortunately, the layer
is thin).
</P>
<P>Choosing 'libio' is the cool way; it allows C++ and C to share some
buffers. It's disabled because of tricky synchronization issues. Other
cool ways (various methods of sharing resources between C and C++
facilities, instead of layering) are possible. This approach can speed
up I/O significantly.
</P>
<P>Other packages are possible. For a new package, a header must be
written to provide types like streamsize (usually just a typedef), as
well as some internal types like<TT> __c_file_type </TT> and
<TT> __c_lock </TT> (for the stdio case, these are FILE (as in
&quot;FILE*&quot;) and a simple POSIX mutex, respectively). An
interface class called <TT> __basic_file </TT> must also be filled in;
as an example, for the stdio case, these member functions are all
inline calles to fread, fwrite, etc.
</P>
<P>Return <A HREF="#top">to the top of the page</A> or
<A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/">to the homepage</A>.
</P>
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<P CLASS="fineprint"><EM>
$Id$
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