view libpurple/stringref.h @ 23904:7ff461621d77

Correct documentation about list account options to reflect what the key and value of the PurpleKeyValuePair actually represent (based on what Pidgin does with them). (Since the only protocol to use them, silc, uses the same string for the key and the value, no harm came of me having written incorrect documentation last time.)

/* TODO: Can we just replace this whole thing with a GCache */

/**
 * @file stringref.h Reference-counted immutable strings
 * @ingroup core
 */

/* purple
 *
 * Purple is the legal property of its developers, whose names are too numerous
 * to list here.  Please refer to the COPYRIGHT file distributed with this
 * source distribution.
 *
 * 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., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02111-1301  USA
 *
 */
#ifndef _PURPLE_STRINGREF_H_
#define _PURPLE_STRINGREF_H_

#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif

typedef struct _PurpleStringref PurpleStringref;

/**
 * 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.
 */
PurpleStringref *purple_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.
 */
PurpleStringref *purple_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.
 */
PurpleStringref *purple_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.
 */
PurpleStringref *purple_stringref_ref(PurpleStringref *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 purple_stringref_unref(PurpleStringref *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 *purple_stringref_value(const PurpleStringref *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 purple_stringref_cmp(const PurpleStringref *s1, const PurpleStringref *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 purple_stringref_len(const PurpleStringref *stringref);

#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif

#endif /* _PURPLE_STRINGREF_H_ */