Library interface

*** OK, translating --Cyril 15:01, 4 Jan 2006 (CET)

Note: this documentation is not meant to replace the eiffeldoc pages.

The existing libraries in 2.1

lib/kernel: the few classes that the compiler directly depend upon
lib/abilities: add features to your classes that other library classes may depend upon
lib/io: the input-output system, complete with some back-ends and a filter system
lib/storage: the many containers (collections, lists, sets and so on)
lib/iterator: the design pattern that allows container traversal
lib/sorting: to sort containers
lib/numeric: anything about numbers: computer-oriented (INTEGER) or real math-oriented (NUMBER)
lib/random: to generate random numbers
lib/string: 8-bit and unicode characters and strings
lib/unicode: unicode parsing
lib/time: what time is it?
lib/sequencer: interleaving computations (no threads involved)
lib/signal: using agents to signal events
lib/vision: graphical interfaces
lib/misc: miscellany

All the 2.1 libraries, plus:

lib/abilities: new abilities (including STORABLE)
lib/storage: a new storage system: repositories that can store/retrieve STORABLEs
lib/net: network access; write an HTTP server in a few lines
lib/html: HTML input-output
lib/xml: an XML parser
lib/exec: start and control an external process, complete with its standard streams
lib/design_patterns: some easily coded design patterns (not sure this one will stay as is)
lib/backtracking: easy to use backtracking features
lib/regular_expression: easy to use regular expressions