annotate src/stringref.h @ 7786:203a18e56dc6

[gaim-migrate @ 8431] * Documentation is good. Not that I have any idea if any of my documentation works, because I haven't checked... I totally made up @note, but it sure seems reasonable to me. * A couple of stringref utility functions which seem useful in any case, like len and cmp. * I'm going ahead and pushing a stringref creation function which creates a zero-refcount stringref into CVS... Nothing uses it yet, but I think that it is useful even in the absence of major stringref conversion ... because it's garbage collected! If no one refs it before the next iteration of the mainloop, it will be freed ... if it is ref'd, of course, it will have to be freed normally by an unref at some later point. committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

/**
 * @file stringref.h Reference-counted immutable strings
 * @ingroup core
 *
 * gaim
 *
 * Copyright (C) 2003 Ethan Blanton <[e-mail]>
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 *
 */

#ifndef _GAIM_STRINGREF_H_
#define _GAIM_STRINGREF_H_

/**
 * The internal representation of a stringref.
 *
 * @note For this structure to be useful, the string contained within
 * it must be immutable -- for this reason, do _not_ access it
 * directly!
 */
typedef struct _GaimStringref {
	unsigned int ref;	/**< The reference count of this string.
	                         *   Note that reference counts are only
				 *   31 bits, and the high-order bit
				 *   indicates whether this string is up
				 *   for GC at the next idle handler...
				 *   But you aren't going to touch this
				 *   anyway, right? */
	char value[0];		/**< The string contained in this ref.
	                         *   Notice that it is simply "hanging
				 *   off the end" of the ref ... this
				 *   is to save an allocation. */
} GaimStringref;

/**
 * Creates an immutable reference-counted string object.  The newly
 * created object will have a reference count of 1.
 *
 * @param value This will be the value of the string; it will be
 *              duplicated.
 *
 * @return A newly allocated string reference object with a refcount
 *         of 1.
 */
GaimStringref *gaim_stringref_new(const char *value);

/**
 * Creates an immutable reference-counted string object.  The newly
 * created object will have a reference count of zero, and if it is
 * not referenced before the next iteration of the mainloop it will
 * be freed at that time.
 *
 * @param value This will be the value of the string; it will be
 *              duplicated.
 *
 * @return A newly allocated string reference object with a refcount
 *         of zero.
 */
GaimStringref *gaim_stringref_new_noref(const char *value);

/**
 * Creates an immutable reference-counted string object from a printf
 * format specification and arguments.  The created object will have a
 * reference count of 1.
 *
 * @param format A printf-style format specification.
 *
 * @return A newly allocated string reference object with a refcount
 *         of 1.
 */
GaimStringref *gaim_stringref_printf(const char *format, ...);

/**
 * Increase the reference count of the given stringref.
 *
 * @param stringref String to be referenced.
 *
 * @return A pointer to the referenced string.
 */
GaimStringref *gaim_stringref_ref(GaimStringref *stringref);

/**
 * Decrease the reference count of the given stringref.  If this
 * reference count reaches zero, the stringref will be freed; thus
 * you MUST NOT use this string after dereferencing it.
 *
 * @param stringref String to be dereferenced.
 */
void gaim_stringref_unref(GaimStringref *stringref);

/**
 * Retrieve the value of a stringref.
 *
 * @note This value should not be cached or stored in a local variable.
 *       While there is nothing inherently incorrect about doing so, it
 *       is easy to forget that the cached value is in fact a
 *       reference-counted object and accidentally use it after
 *       dereferencing.  This is more problematic for a reference-
 *       counted object than a heap-allocated object, as it may seem to
 *       be valid or invalid nondeterministically based on how many
 *       other references to it exist.
 *
 * @param stringref String reference from which to retrieve the value.
 *
 * @return The contents of the string reference.
 */
const char *gaim_stringref_value(const GaimStringref *stringref);

/**
 * Compare two stringrefs for string equality.  This returns the same
 * value as strcmp would, where <0 indicates that s1 is "less than" s2
 * in the ASCII lexicography, 0 indicates equality, etc.
 *
 * @param s1 The reference string.
 *
 * @param s2 The string to compare against the reference.
 *
 * @return An ordering indication on s1 and s2.
 */
int gaim_stringref_cmp(const GaimStringref *s1, const GaimStringref *s2);

/**
 * Find the length of the string inside a stringref.
 *
 * @param stringref The string in whose length we are interested.
 *
 * @return The length of the string in stringref
 */
size_t gaim_stringref_len(const GaimStringref *stringref);

#endif /* _GAIM_STRINGREF_H_ */