Core Foundation Libraries

When you install the Carbon library (CarbonLib) on a Mac OS 8 or Mac OS 9 system you get Core Foundation along with it. In other words, the production version of Core Foundation is rolled into CarbonLib. The debug version of the Carbon library, DebuggingCarbonLib, will have the debug version of the Core Foundation library rolled into it. When you use the debug version of the library you automatically get assertion checking on common programming errors such as

Currently assertions print a log message and cause a break into the debugger.

The production version of the Core Foundation library is optimized and performs no error checking; invalid parameters, even references to the wrong Core Foundation type, will cause indeterminate and probably incorrect behavior. Obviously, you should use the debug version of the Core Foundation library during development to catch errors in programming.

On Mac OS X, Core Foundation is a framework: a package consisting of a dynamic shared library and associated resources, including public header files. CoreFoundation.framework also includes a production version and a debug version of the library.


© 1999 Apple Computer, Inc. – (Last Updated 07 September 99)