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File: internals.info, Node: Basic Lisp Modules, Next: Modules for Standard Editing Operations, Prev: Low-Level Modules, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Basic Lisp Modules
==================
size name
------- ---------------------
70167 emacsfns.h
6305 lisp-disunion.h
7086 lisp-union.h
54929 lisp.h
14235 lrecord.h
10728 symsinit.h
These are the basic header files for all XEmacs modules. Each module
includes `lisp.h', which brings the other header files in. `lisp.h'
contains the definitions of the structures and extractor and
constructor macros for the basic Lisp objects and various other basic
definitions for the Lisp environment, as well as some general-purpose
definitions (e.g. `min()' and `max()'). `lisp.h' includes either
`lisp-disunion.h' or `lisp-union.h', depending on whether
`NO_UNION_TYPE' is defined. These files define the typedef of the Lisp
object itself (as described above) and the low-level macros that hide
the actual implementation of the Lisp object. All extractor and
constructor macros for particular types of Lisp objects are defined in
terms of these low-level macros.
As a general rule, all typedefs should go into the typedefs section
of `lisp.h' rather than into a module-specific header file even if the
structure is defined elsewhere. This allows function prototypes that
use the typedef to be placed into `emacsfns.h'. Forward structure
declarations (i.e. a simple declaration like `struct foo;' where the
structure itself is defined elsewhere) should be placed into the
typedefs section as necessary.
`lrecord.h' contains the basic structures and macros that implement
all record-type Lisp objects - i.e. all objects whose type is a field
in their C structure, which includes all objects except the few most
basic ones.
`emacsfns.h' contains prototypes for most of the exported functions
in the various modules. (In particular, prototypes for Lisp primitives
should always go into this header file. Prototypes for other functions
can either go here or in a module-specific header file, depending on how
general-purpose the function is and whether it has special-purpose
argument types requiring definitions not in `lisp.h'.) All
initialization functions are prototyped in `symsinit.h'.
120478 alloc.c
1029 pure.c
2506 puresize.h
The large module `alloc.c' implements all of the basic allocation and
garbage collection for Lisp objects. The most commonly used Lisp
objects are allocated in chunks, similar to the Blocktype data type
described above; others are allocated in individually `malloc()'ed
blocks. This module provides the foundation on which all other aspects
of the Lisp environment sit, and is the first module initialized at
startup.
Note that `alloc.c' provides a series of generic functions that are
not dependent on any particular object type, and interfaces to
particular types of objects using a standardized interface of
type-specific methods. This scheme is a fundamental principle of
object-oriented programming and is heavily used throughout XEmacs. The
great advantage of this is that it allows for a clean separation of
functionality into different modules - new classes of Lisp objects, new
event interfaces, new device types, new stream interfaces, etc. can be
added transparently without affecting code anywhere else in XEmacs.
Because the different subsystems are divided into general and specific
code, adding a new subtype within a subsystem will in general not
require changes to the generic subsystem code or affect any of the other
subtypes in the subsystem; this provides a great deal of robustness to
the XEmacs code.
`pure.c' contains the declaration of the "purespace" array. Pure
space is a hack used to place some constant Lisp data into the code
segment of the XEmacs executable, even though the data needs to be
initialized through function calls. (See above in section VIII for more
info about this.) During startup, certain sorts of data is
automatically copied into pure space, and other data is copied manually
in some of the basic Lisp files by calling the function `purecopy',
which copies the object if possible (this only works in temacs, of
course) and returns the new object. In particular, while temacs is
executing, the Lisp reader automatically copies all compiled-function
objects that it reads into pure space. Since compiled-function objects
are large, are never modified, and typically comprise the majority of
the contents of a compiled-Lisp file, this works well. While XEmacs is
running, any attempt to modify an object that resides in pure space
causes an error. Objects in pure space are never garbage collected -
almost all of the time, they're intended to be permanent, and in any
case you can't write into pure space to set the mark bits.
`puresize.h' contains the declaration of the size of the pure space
array. This depends on the optional features that are compiled in, any
extra purespace requested by the user at compile time, and certain other
factors (e.g. 64-bit machines need more pure space because their Lisp
objects are larger). The smallest size that suffices should be used, so
that there's no wasted space. If there's not enough pure space, you
will get an error during the build process, specifying how much more
pure space is needed.
122243 eval.c
2305 backtrace.h
This module contains all of the functions to handle the flow of
control. This includes the mechanisms of defining functions, calling
functions, traversing stack frames, and binding variables; the control
primitives and other special forms such as `while', `if', `eval',
`let', `and', `or', `progn', etc.; handling of non-local exits,
unwind-protects, and exception handlers; entering the debugger; methods
for the subr Lisp object type; etc. It does *not* include the `read'
function, the `print' function, or the handling of symbols and obarrays.
`backtrace.h' contains some structures related to stack frames and
the flow of control.
64949 lread.c
This module implements the Lisp reader and the `read' function,
which converts text into Lisp objects, according to the read syntax of
the objects, as described above. This is similar to the parser that is
a part of all compilers.
40900 print.c
This module implements the Lisp print mechanism and the `print'
function and related functions. This is the inverse of the Lisp reader
- it converts Lisp objects to a printed, textual representation.
(Hopefully something that can be read back in using `read' to get an
equivalent object.)
4518 general.c
60220 symbols.c
9966 symeval.h
`symbols.c' implements the handling of symbols, obarrays, and
retrieving the values of symbols. Much of the code is devoted to
handling the special "symbol-value-magic" objects that define special
types of variables - this includes buffer-local variables, variable
aliases, variables that forward into C variables, etc. This module is
initialized extremely early (right after `alloc.c'), because it is here
that the basic symbols `t' and `nil' are created, and those symbols are
used everywhere throughout XEmacs.
`symeval.h' contains the definitions of symbol structures and the
`DEFVAR_LISP()' and related macros for declaring variables.
48973 data.c
25694 floatfns.c
71049 fns.c
These modules implement the methods and standard Lisp primitives for
all the basic Lisp object types other than symbols (which are described
above). `data.c' contains all the predicates (primitives that return
whether an object is of a particular type); the integer arithmetic
functions; and the basic accessor and mutator primitives for the various
object types. `fns.c' contains all the standard predicates for working
with sequences (where, abstractly speaking, a sequence is an ordered set
of objects, and can be represented by a list, string, vector, or
bit-vector); it also contains `equal', perhaps on the grounds that bulk
of the operation of `equal' is comparing sequences. `floatfns.c'
contains methods and primitives for floats and floating-point
arithmetic.
23555 bytecode.c
3358 bytecode.h
`bytecode.c' implements the byte-code interpreter, and `bytecode.h'
contains associated structures. Note that the byte-code *compiler* is
written in Lisp.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for Standard Editing Operations, Next: Editor-Level Control Flow Modules, Prev: Basic Lisp Modules, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for Standard Editing Operations
=======================================
size name
------- ---------------------
82900 buffer.c
60964 buffer.h
6059 bufslots.h
`buffer.c' implements the "buffer" Lisp object type. This includes
functions that create and destroy buffers; retrieve buffers by name or
by other properties; manipulate lists of buffers (remember that buffers
are permanent objects and stored in various ordered lists); retrieve or
change buffer properties; etc. It also contains the definitions of all
the built-in buffer-local variables (which can be viewed as buffer
properties). It does *not* contain code to manipulate buffer-local
variables (that's in `symbols.c', described above); or code to
manipulate the text in a buffer.
`buffer.h' defines the structures associated with a buffer and the
various macros for retrieving text from a buffer and special buffer
positions (e.g. `point', the default location for text insertion). It
also contains macros for working with buffer positions and converting
between their representations as character offsets and as byte offsets
(under MULE, they are different, because characters can be multi-byte).
It is one of the largest header files.
`bufslots.h' defines the fields in the buffer structure that
correspond to the built-in buffer-local variables. It is its own
header file because it is included many times in `buffer.c', as a way
of iterating over all the built-in buffer-local variables.
79888 insdel.c
6103 insdel.h
`insdel.c' contains low-level functions for inserting and deleting
text in a buffer, keeping track of changed regions for use by
redisplay, and calling any before-change and after-change functions
that may have been registered for the buffer. It also contains the
actual functions that convert between byte offsets and character
offsets.
`insdel.h' contains associated headers.
10975 marker.c
This module implements the "marker" Lisp object type, which
conceptually is a pointer to a text position in a buffer that moves
around as text is inserted and deleted, so as to remain in the same
relative position. This module doesn't actually move the markers around
- that's handled in `insdel.c'. This module just creates them and
implements the primitives for working with them. As markers are simple
objects, this does not entail much.
Note that the standard arithmetic primitives (e.g. `+') accept
markers in place of integers and automatically substitute the value of
`marker-position' for the marker, i.e. an integer describing the
current buffer position of the marker.
193714 extents.c
15686 extents.h
This module implements the "extent" Lisp object type, which is like
a marker that works over a range of text rather than a single position.
Extents are also much more complex and powerful than markers and have a
more efficient (and more algorithmically complex) implementation. The
implementation is described in detail in comments in `extents.c'.
The code in `extents.c' works closely with `insdel.c' so that
extents are properly moved around as text is inserted and deleted.
There is also code in `extents.c' that provides information needed by
the redisplay mechanism for efficient operation. (Remember that extents
can have display properties that affect [sometimes drastically, as in
the `invisible' property] the display of the text they cover.)
60155 editfns.c
`editfns.c' contains the standard Lisp primitives for working with a
buffer's text, and calls the low-level functions in `insdel.c'. It
also contains primitives for working with `point' (the default buffer
insertion location).
`editfns.c' also contains functions for retrieving various
characteristics from the external environment: the current time, the
process ID of the running XEmacs process, the name of the user who ran
this XEmacs process, etc. It's not clear why this code is in
`editfns.c'.
26081 callint.c
12577 cmds.c
2749 commands.h
These modules implement the basic "interactive" commands, i.e.
user-callable functions. Commands, as opposed to other functions, have
special ways of getting their parameters interactively (by querying the
user), as opposed to having them passed in a normal function
invocation. Many commands are not really meant to be called from other
Lisp functions, because they modify global state in a way that's often
undesired as part of other Lisp functions.
`callint.c' implements the mechanism for querying the user for
parameters and calling interactive commands. The bulk of this module is
code that parses the interactive spec that is supplied with an
interactive command.
`cmds.c' implements the basic, most commonly used editing commands:
commands to move around the current buffer and insert and delete
characters. These commands are implemented using the Lisp primitives
defined in `editfns.c'.
`commands.h' contains associated structure definitions and
prototypes.
194863 regex.c
18968 regex.h
79800 search.c
`search.c' implements the Lisp primitives for searching for text in
a buffer, and some of the low-level algorithms for doing this. In
particular, the fast fixed-string Boyer-Moore search algorithm is
implemented in `search.c'. The low-level algorithms for doing
regular-expression searching, however, are implemented in `regex.c' and
`regex.h'. These two modules are largely independent of XEmacs, and
are similar to (and based upon) the regular-expression routines used in
`grep' and other GNU utilities.
20476 doprnt.c
`doprnt.c' implements formatted-string processing, similar to
`printf()' command in C.
15372 undo.c
This module implements the undo mechanism for tracking buffer
changes. Most of this could be implemented in Lisp.
File: internals.info, Node: Editor-Level Control Flow Modules, Next: Modules for the Basic Displayable Lisp Objects, Prev: Modules for Standard Editing Operations, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Editor-Level Control Flow Modules
=================================
size name
------- ---------------------
84546 event-Xt.c
121483 event-stream.c
6658 event-tty.c
49271 events.c
14459 events.h
These implement the handling of events (user input and other system
notifications).
`events.c' and `events.h' define the "event" Lisp object type and
primitives for manipulating it.
`event-stream.c' implements the basic functions for working with
event queues, dispatching an event by looking it up in relevant keymaps
and such, and handling timeouts; this includes the primitives
`next-event' and `dispatch-event', as well as related primitives such
as `sit-for', `sleep-for', and `accept-process-output'.
(`event-stream.c' is one of the hairiest and trickiest modules in
XEmacs. Beware! You can easily mess things up here.)
`event-Xt.c' and `event-tty.c' implement the low-level interfaces
onto retrieving events from Xt (the X toolkit) and from TTY's (using
`read()' and `select()'), respectively. The event interface enforces a
clean separation between the specific code for interfacing with the
operating system and the generic code for working with events, by
defining an API of basic, low-level event methods; `event-Xt.c' and
`event-tty.c' are two different implementations of this API. To add
support for a new operating system (e.g. NeXTstep), one merely needs to
provide another implementation of those API functions.
Note that the choice of whether to use `event-Xt.c' or `event-tty.c'
is made at compile time! Or at the very latest, it is made at startup
time. `event-Xt.c' handles events for *both* X and TTY frames;
`event-tty.c' is only used when X support is not compiled into XEmacs.
The reason for this is that there is only one event loop in XEmacs:
thus, it needs to be able to receive events from all different kinds of
frames.
129583 keymap.c
2621 keymap.h
`keymap.c' and `keymap.h' define the "keymap" Lisp object type and
associated methods and primitives. (Remember that keymaps are objects
that associate event descriptions with functions to be called to
"execute" those events; `dispatch-event' looks up events in the
relevant keymaps.)
25212 keyboard.c
`keyboard.c' contains functions that implement the actual editor
command loop - i.e. the event loop that cyclically retrieves and
dispatches events. This code is also rather tricky, just like
`event-stream.c'.
9973 macros.c
1397 macros.h
These two modules contain the basic code for defining keyboard
macros. These functions don't actually do much; most of the code that
handles keyboard macros is mixed in with the event-handling code in
`event-stream.c'.
23234 minibuf.c
This contains some miscellaneous code related to the minibuffer
(most of the minibuffer code was moved into Lisp by Richard Mlynarik).
This includes the primitives for completion (although filename
completion is in `dired.c'), the lowest-level interface to the
minibuffer (if the command loop were cleaned up, this too could be in
Lisp), and code for dealing with the echo area (this, too, was mostly
moved into Lisp, and the only code remaining is code to call out to
Lisp or provide simple bootstrapping implementations early in temacs,
before the echo-area Lisp code is loaded).
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for the Basic Displayable Lisp Objects, Next: Modules for other Display-Related Lisp Objects, Prev: Editor-Level Control Flow Modules, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for the Basic Displayable Lisp Objects
==============================================
size name
------- ---------------------
985 device-ns.h
6454 device-stream.c
1196 device-stream.h
9526 device-tty.c
8660 device-tty.h
43798 device-x.c
11667 device-x.h
26056 device.c
22993 device.h
These modules implement the "device" Lisp object type. This
abstracts a particular screen or connection on which frames are
displayed. As with Lisp objects, event interfaces, and other
subsystems, the device code is separated into a generic component that
contains a standardized interface (in the form of a set of methods) onto
particular device types.
The device subsystem defines all the methods and provides method
services for not only device operations but also for the frame, window,
menubar, scrollbar, toolbar, and other displayable-object subsystems.
The reason for this is that all of these subsystems have the same
subtypes (X, TTY, NeXTstep, Microsoft Windows, etc.) as devices do.
934 frame-ns.h
2303 frame-tty.c
69205 frame-x.c
5976 frame-x.h
68175 frame.c
15080 frame.h
Each device contains one or more frames in which objects (e.g. text)
are displayed. A frame corresponds to a window in the window system;
usually this is a top-level window but it could potentially be one of a
number of overlapping child windows within a top-level window, using the
MDI (Multiple Document Interface) protocol in Microsoft Windows or a
similar scheme.
The `frame-*' files implement the "frame" Lisp object type and
provide the generic and device-type-specific operations on frames (e.g.
raising, lowering, resizing, moving, etc.).
160783 window.c
15974 window.h
Each frame consists of one or more non-overlapping "windows" (better
known as "panes" in standard window-system terminology) in which a
buffer's text can be displayed. Windows can also have scrollbars
displayed around their edges.
`window.c' and `window.h' implement the "window" Lisp object type
and provide code to manage windows. Since windows have no associated
resources in the window system (the window system knows only about the
frame; no child windows or anything are used for XEmacs windows), there
is no device-type-specific code here; all of that code is part of the
redisplay mechanism or the code for particular object types such as
scrollbars.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for other Display-Related Lisp Objects, Next: Modules for the Redisplay Mechanism, Prev: Modules for the Basic Displayable Lisp Objects, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for other Display-Related Lisp Objects
==============================================
size name
------- ---------------------
54397 faces.c
15173 faces.h
4961 bitmaps.h
954 glyphs-ns.h
105345 glyphs-x.c
4288 glyphs-x.h
72102 glyphs.c
16356 glyphs.h
952 objects-ns.h
9971 objects-tty.c
1465 objects-tty.h
32326 objects-x.c
2806 objects-x.h
31944 objects.c
6809 objects.h
57511 menubar-x.c
11243 menubar.c
25012 scrollbar-x.c
2554 scrollbar-x.h
26954 scrollbar.c
2778 scrollbar.h
23117 toolbar-x.c
43456 toolbar.c
4280 toolbar.h
25070 font-lock.c
This file provides C support for syntax highlighting - i.e.
highlighting different syntactic constructs of a source file in
different colors, for easy reading. The C support is provided so that
this is fast.
32180 dgif_lib.c
3999 gif_err.c
10697 gif_lib.h
9371 gifalloc.c
These modules decode GIF-format image files, for use with glyphs.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for the Redisplay Mechanism, Next: Modules for Interfacing with the File System, Prev: Modules for other Display-Related Lisp Objects, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for the Redisplay Mechanism
===================================
size name
------- ---------------------
38692 redisplay-output.c
40835 redisplay-tty.c
65069 redisplay-x.c
234142 redisplay.c
17026 redisplay.h
These files provide the redisplay mechanism. As with many other
subsystems in XEmacs, there is a clean separation between the general
and device-specific support.
`redisplay.c' contains the bulk of the redisplay engine. These
functions update the redisplay structures (which describe how the screen
is to appear) to reflect any changes made to the state of any
displayable objects (buffer, frame, window, etc.) since the last time
that redisplay was called. These functions are highly optimized to
avoid doing more work than necessary (since redisplay is called
extremely often and is potentially a huge time sink), and depend heavily
on notifications from the objects themselves that changes have occurred,
so that redisplay doesn't explicitly have to check each possible object.
The redisplay mechanism also contains a great deal of caching to further
speed things up; some of this caching is contained within the various
displayable objects.
`redisplay-output.c' goes through the redisplay structures and
converts them into calls to device-specific methods to actually output
the screen changes.
`redisplay-x.c' and `redisplay-tty.c' are two implementations of
these redisplay output methods, for X frames and TTY frames,
respectively.
14129 indent.c
This module contains various functions and Lisp primitives for
converting between buffer positions and screen positions. These
functions call the redisplay mechanism to do most of the work, and then
examine the redisplay structures to get the necessary information. This
module needs work.
14754 termcap.c
2141 terminfo.c
7253 tparam.c
These files contain functions for working with the termcap
(BSD-style) and terminfo (System V style) databases of terminal
capabilities and escape sequences, used when XEmacs is displaying in a
TTY.
10869 cm.c
5876 cm.h
These files provide some miscellaneous TTY-output functions and
should probably be merged into `redisplay-tty.c'.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for Interfacing with the File System, Next: Modules for Other Aspects of the Lisp Interpreter and Object System, Prev: Modules for the Redisplay Mechanism, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for Interfacing with the File System
============================================
size name
------- ---------------------
43362 lstream.c
14240 lstream.h
These modules implement the "stream" Lisp object type. This is an
internal-only Lisp object that implements a generic buffering stream.
The idea is to provide a uniform interface onto all sources and sinks of
data, including file descriptors, stdio streams, chunks of memory, Lisp
buffers, Lisp strings, etc. That way, I/O functions can be written to
the stream interface and can transparently handle all possible sources
and sinks. (For example, the `read' function can read data from a
file, a string, a buffer, or even a function that is called repeatedly
to return data, without worrying about where the data is coming from or
what-size chunks it is returned in.)
Note that in the C code, streams are called "lstreams" (for "Lisp
streams") to distinguish them from other kinds of streams, e.g. stdio
streams and C++ I/O streams.
Similar to other subsystems in XEmacs, lstreams are separated into
generic functions and a set of methods for the different types of
lstreams. `lstream.c' provides implementations of many different types
of streams; others are provided, e.g., in `mule-coding.c'.
126926 fileio.c
This implements the basic primitives for interfacing with the file
system. This includes primitives for reading files into buffers,
writing buffers into files, checking for the presence or accessibility
of files, canonicalizing file names, etc. Note that these primitives
are usually not invoked directly by the user: There is a great deal of
higher-level Lisp code that implements the user commands such as
`find-file' and `save-buffer'. This is similar to the distinction
between the lower-level primitives in `editfns.c' and the higher-level
user commands in `commands.c' and `simple.el'.
10960 filelock.c
This file provides functions for detecting clashes between different
processes (e.g. XEmacs and some external process, or two different
XEmacs processes) modifying the same file. (XEmacs can optionally use
the `lock/' subdirectory to provide a form of "locking" between
different XEmacs processes.) This module is also used by the low-level
functions in `insdel.c' to ensure that, if the first modification is
being made to a buffer whose corresponding file has been externally
modified, the user is made aware of this so that the buffer can be
synched up with the external changes if necessary.
4527 filemode.c
This file provides some miscellaneous functions that construct a
`rwxr-xr-x'-type permissions string (as might appear in an `ls'-style
directory listing) given the information returned by the `stat()'
system call.
22855 dired.c
2094 ndir.h
These files implement the XEmacs interface to directory searching.
This includes a number of primitives for determining the files in a
directory and for doing filename completion. (Remember that generic
completion is handled by a different mechanism, in `minibuf.c'.)
`ndir.h' is a header file used for the directory-searching emulation
functions provided in `sysdep.c' (see section J below), for systems
that don't provide any directory-searching functions. (On those
systems, directories can be read directly as files, and parsed.)
4311 realpath.c
This file provides an implementation of the `realpath()' function
for expanding symbolic links, on systems that don't implement it or have
a broken implementation.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for Other Aspects of the Lisp Interpreter and Object System, Next: Modules for Interfacing with the Operating System, Prev: Modules for Interfacing with the File System, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for Other Aspects of the Lisp Interpreter and Object System
These files implement the "hashtable" Lisp object type. `hash.c'
and `hash.h' provide a generic C implementation of hash tables (which
can stand independently of XEmacs), and `elhash.c' and `elhash.h'
provide a Lisp interface onto the C hash tables using the hashtable
Lisp object type.
95691 specifier.c
11167 specifier.h
This module implements the "specifier" Lisp object type. This is
primarily used for displayable properties, and allows for values that
are specific to a particular buffer, window, frame, device, or device
class, as well as a default value existing. This is used, for example,
to control the height of the horizontal scrollbar or the appearance of
the `default', `bold', or other faces. The specifier object consists
of a number of specifications, each of which maps from a buffer,
window, etc. to a value. The function `specifier-instance' looks up a
value given a window (from which a buffer, frame, and device can be
derived).
43058 chartab.c
6503 chartab.h
9918 casetab.c
`chartab.c' and `chartab.h' implement the "char table" Lisp object
type, which maps from characters or certain sorts of character ranges
to Lisp objects. The implementation of this object type is optimized
for the internal representation of characters. Char tables come in
different types, which affect the allowed object types to which a
character can be mapped and also dictate certain other properties of
the char table.
`casetab.c' implements one sort of char table, the "case table",
which maps characters to other characters of possibly different case.
These are used by XEmacs to implement case-changing primitives and to
do case-insensitive searching.
49593 syntax.c
10200 syntax.h
This module implements "syntax tables", another sort of char table
that maps characters into syntax classes that define the syntax of these
characters (e.g. a parenthesis belongs to a class of `open' characters
that have corresponding `close' characters and can be nested). This
module also implements the Lisp "scanner", a set of primitives for
scanning over text based on syntax tables. This is used, for example,
to find the matching parenthesis in a command such as `forward-sexp',
and by `font-lock.c' to locate quoted strings, comments, etc.
10438 casefiddle.c
This module implements various Lisp primitives for upcasing,
downcasing and capitalizing strings or regions of buffers.
20234 rangetab.c
This module implements the "range table" Lisp object type, which
provides for a mapping from ranges of integers to arbitrary Lisp
objects.
3201 opaque.c
2206 opaque.h
This module implements the "opaque" Lisp object type, an
internal-only Lisp object that encapsulates an arbitrary block of memory
so that it can be managed by the Lisp allocation system. To create an
opaque object, you call `make_opaque()', passing a pointer to a block
of memory. An object is created that is big enough to hold the memory,
which is copied into the object's storage. The object will then stick
around as long as you keep pointers to it, after which it will be
automatically reclaimed.
Opaque objects can also have an arbitrary "mark method" associated
with them, in case the block of memory contains other Lisp objects that
need to be marked for garbage-collection purposes. (If you need other
object methods, such as a finalize method, you should just go ahead and
create a new Lisp object type - it's not hard.)
8783 abbrev.c
This function provides a few primitives for doing dynamic
abbreviation expansion. In XEmacs, most of the code for this has been
moved into Lisp. Some C code remains for speed and because the
primitive `self-insert-command' (which is executed for all
self-inserting characters) hooks into the abbrev mechanism.
(`self-insert-command' is itself in C only for speed.)
21934 doc.c
This function provides primitives for retrieving the documentation
strings of functions and variables. These documentation strings contain
certain special markers that get dynamically expanded (e.g. a
reverse-lookup is performed on some named functions to retrieve their
current key bindings). Some documentation strings (in particular, for
the built-in primitives and pre-loaded Lisp functions) are stored
externally in a file `DOC' in the `lib-src/' directory and need to be
fetched from that file. (Part of the build stage involves building this
file, and another part involves constructing an index for this file and
embedding it into the executable, so that the functions in `doc.c' do
not have to search the entire `DOC' file to find the appropriate
documentation string.)
13197 md5.c
This function provides a Lisp primitive that implements the MD5
secure hashing scheme, used to create a large hash value of a string of
data such that the data cannot be derived from the hash value. This is
used for various security applications on the Internet.
7000 mocklisp.c
This function provides some emulation of MockLisp, a version of Lisp
provided in Gosling Emacs (aka Unipress Emacs), from which some old
versions of GNU Emacs were derived. You have to explicitly enable this
code with a configure option and shouldn't normally, because it changes
the semantics of XEmacs Lisp in ways that are not desirable for normal
Lisp programs.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for Interfacing with the Operating System, Next: Modules for Interfacing with X Windows, Prev: Modules for Other Aspects of the Lisp Interpreter and Object System, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for Interfacing with the Operating System
=================================================
size name
------- ---------------------
33533 callproc.c
89697 process.c
4663 process.h
These modules allow XEmacs to spawn and communicate with subprocesses
and network connections.
`callproc.c' implements (through the `call-process' primitive) what
are called "synchronous subprocesses". This means that XEmacs runs a
program, waits till it's done, and retrieves its output. A typical
example might be calling the `ls' program to get a directory listing.
`process.c' and `process.h' implement "asynchronous subprocesses".
This means that XEmacs starts a program and then continues normally,
not waiting for the process to finish. Data can be sent to the process
or retrieved from it as it's running. This is used for the `shell'
command (which provides a front end onto a shell program such as
`csh'), the mail and news readers implemented in XEmacs, etc. The
result of calling `start-process' to start a subprocess is a process
object, a particular kind of object used to communicate with the
subprocess. You can send data to the process by passing the process
object and the data to `send-process', and you can specify what happens
to data retrieved from the process by setting properties of the process
object. (When the process sends data, XEmacs receives a process event,
which says that there is data ready. When `dispatch-event' is called
on this event, it reads the data from the process and does something
with it, as specified by the process object's properties. Typically,
this means inserting the data into a buffer or calling a function.)
Another property of the process object is called the "sentinel", which
is a function that is called when the process terminates.
Process objects are also used for network connections (connections
to a process running on another machine). Network connections are
started with `open-network-stream' but otherwise work just like
subprocesses.
136029 sysdep.c
5986 sysdep.h
These modules implement most of the low-level, messy operating-system
interface code. This includes various device control (ioctl) operations
for file descriptors, TTY's, pseudo-terminals, etc. (usually this stuff
is fairly system-dependent; thus the name of this module), and emulation
of standard library functions and system calls on systems that don't
provide them or have broken versions.
3605 sysdir.h
6708 sysfile.h
2027 sysfloat.h
2918 sysproc.h
745 syspwd.h
7643 syssignal.h
6892 systime.h
12477 systty.h
3487 syswait.h
These header files provide consistent interfaces onto
system-dependent header files and system calls. The idea is that,
instead of including a standard header file like `<sys/param.h>' (which
may or may not exist on various systems) or having to worry about
whether all system provide a particular preprocessor constant, or
having to deal with the four different paradigms for manipulating
signals, you just include the appropriate `sys*.h' header file, which
includes all the right system header files, defines and missing
preprocessor constants, provides a uniform interface onto system calls,
etc.
`sysdir.h' provides a uniform interface onto directory-querying
functions. (In some cases, this is in conjunction with emulation
functions in `sysdep.c'.)
`sysfile.h' includes all the necessary header files for standard
system calls (e.g. `read()'), ensures that all necessary `open()' and
`stat()' preprocessor constants are defined, and possibly (usually)
substitutes sugared versions of `read()', `write()', etc. that
automatically restart interrupted I/O operations.
`sysfloat.h' includes the necessary header files for floating-point
operations.
`sysproc.h' includes the necessary header files for calling
`select()', `fork()', `execve()', socket operations, and the like, and
ensures that the `FD_*()' macros for descriptor-set manipulations are
available.
`syspwd.h' includes the necessary header files for obtaining
information from `/etc/passwd' (the functions are emulated under VMS).
`syssignal.h' includes the necessary header files for
signal-handling and provides a uniform interface onto the different
signal-handling and signal-blocking paradigms.
`systime.h' includes the necessary header files and provides uniform
interfaces for retrieving the time of day, setting file
access/modification times, getting the amount of time used by the XEmacs
process, etc.
`systty.h' buffers against the infinitude of different ways of
controlling TTY's.
`syswait.h' provides a uniform way of retrieving the exit status
from a `wait()'ed-on process (some systems use a union, others use an
int).
7940 hpplay.c
10920 libsst.c
1480 libsst.h
3260 libst.h
15355 linuxplay.c
15849 nas.c
19133 sgiplay.c
15411 sound.c
7358 sunplay.c
These files implement the ability to play various sounds on some
types of computers. You have to configure your XEmacs with sound
support in order to get this capability.
`sound.c' provides the generic interface. It implements various
Lisp primitives and variables that let you specify which sounds should
be played in certain conditions. (The conditions are identified by
symbols, which are passed to `ding' to make a sound. Various standard
functions call this function at certain times; if sound support does
not exist, a simple beep results.
`sgiplay.c', `sunplay.c', `hpplay.c', and `linuxplay.c' interface to
the machine's speaker for various different kind of machines. This is
called "native" sound.
`nas.c' interfaces to a computer somewhere else on the network using
the NAS (Network Audio Server) protocol, playing sounds on that
machine. This allows you to run XEmacs on a remote machine, with its
display set to your local machine, and have the sounds be made on your
local machine, provided that you have a NAS server running on your local
machine.
`libsst.c', `libsst.h', and `libst.h' provide some additional
functions for playing sound on a Sun SPARC but are not currently in use.
44368 tooltalk.c
2137 tooltalk.h
These two modules implement an interface to the ToolTalk protocol,
which is an interprocess communication protocol implemented on some
versions of Unix. ToolTalk is a high-level protocol that allows
processes to register themselves as providers of particular services;
other processes can then request a service without knowing or caring
exactly who is providing the service. It is similar in spirit to the
DDE protocol provided under Microsoft Windows. ToolTalk is a part of
the new CDE (Common Desktop Environment) specification and is used to
connect the parts of the SPARCWorks development environment.
22695 getloadavg.c
This module provides the ability to retrieve the system's current
load average. (The way to do this is highly system-specific,
unfortunately, and requires a lot of special-case code.)
148520 energize.c
6896 energize.h
This module provides code to interface to an Energize server (when
XEmacs is used as part of Lucid's Energize development environment) and
provides some other Energize-specific functions. Much of the code in
this module should be made more general-purpose and moved elsewhere, but
is no longer very relevant now that Lucid is defunct. It also hasn't
worked since version 19.12, since nobody has been maintaining it.
2861 sunpro.c
This module provides a small amount of code used internally at Sun to
keep statistics on the usage of XEmacs.
5548 broken-sun.h
3468 strcmp.c
2179 strcpy.c
1650 sunOS-fix.c
These files provide replacement functions and prototypes to fix
numerous bugs in early releases of SunOS 4.1.
11669 hftctl.c
This module provides some terminal-control code necessary on
versions of AIX prior to 4.1.
1776 acldef.h
1602 chpdef.h
9032 uaf.h
105 vlimit.h
7145 vms-pp.c
1158 vms-pwd.h
26532 vmsfns.c
6038 vmsmap.c
695 vmspaths.h
17482 vmsproc.c
469 vmsproc.h
All of these files are used for VMS support, which has never worked
in XEmacs.
28316 msdos.c
1472 msdos.h
These modules are used for MS-DOS support, which does not work in
XEmacs.
File: internals.info, Node: Modules for Interfacing with X Windows, Next: Modules for Internationalization, Prev: Modules for Interfacing with the Operating System, Up: A Summary of the Various XEmacs Modules
Modules for Interfacing with X Windows
======================================
size name
------- ---------------------
3196 Emacs.ad.h
A file generated from `Emacs.ad', which contains XEmacs-supplied
fallback resources (so that XEmacs has pretty defaults).
24242 EmacsFrame.c
6979 EmacsFrame.h
3351 EmacsFrameP.h
These modules implement an Xt widget class that encapsulates a frame.
This is for ease in integrating with Xt. The EmacsFrame widget covers
the entire X window except for the menubar; the scrollbars are
positioned on top of the EmacsFrame widget.
*Warning:* Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. This code took an
ungodly amount of time to get right, and is likely to fall apart
mercilessly at the slightest change. Such is life under Xt.
8178 EmacsManager.c
1967 EmacsManager.h
1895 EmacsManagerP.h
These modules implement a simple Xt manager (i.e. composite) widget
class that simply lets its children set whatever geometry they want.
It's amazing that Xt doesn't provide this standardly, but on second
thought, it makes sense, considering how amazingly broken Xt is.
13188 EmacsShell-sub.c
4588 EmacsShell.c
2180 EmacsShell.h
3133 EmacsShellP.h
These modules implement two Xt widget classes that are subclasses of
the TopLevelShell and TransientShell classes. This is necessary to deal
with more brokenness that Xt has sadistically thrust onto the backs of
developers.
9673 xgccache.c
1111 xgccache.h
These modules provide functions for maintenance and caching of GC's
(graphics contexts) under the X Window System. This code is junky and
needs to be rewritten.
69181 xselect.c
This module provides an interface to the X Window System's concept of
"selections", the standard way for X applications to communicate with
each other.
929 xintrinsic.h
1038 xintrinsicp.h
1579 xmmanagerp.h
1585 xmprimitivep.h
These header files are similar in spirit to the `sys*.h' files and
buffer against different implementations of Xt and Motif.
* `xintrinsic.h' should be included in place of `<Intrinsic.h>'.
* `xintrinsicp.h' should be included in place of `<IntrinsicP.h>'.
* `xmmanagerp.h' should be included in place of `<XmManagerP.h>'.
* `xmprimitivep.h' should be included in place of `<XmPrimitiveP.h>'.
16930 xmu.c
936 xmu.h
These files provide an emulation of the Xmu library for those systems
(i.e. HPUX) that don't provide it as a standard part of X.
4201 ExternalClient-Xlib.c
18083 ExternalClient.c
2035 ExternalClient.h
2104 ExternalClientP.h
22684 ExternalShell.c
1709 ExternalShell.h
1971 ExternalShellP.h
2478 extw-Xlib.c
1481 extw-Xlib.h
6565 extw-Xt.c
1430 extw-Xt.h
These files provide the "external widget" interface, which allows an
XEmacs frame to appear as a widget in another application. To do this,
you have to configure with `--external-widget'.
`ExternalShell*' provides the server (XEmacs) side of the connection.
`ExternalClient*' provides the client (other application) side of
the connection. These files are not compiled into XEmacs but are
compiled into libraries that are then linked into your application.
`extw-*' is common code that is used for both the client and server.
Don't touch this code; something is liable to break if you do.
31014 epoch.c
This file provides some additional, Epoch-compatible, functionality
