| 1 | .\" -*-nroff-*- |
| 2 | .TH selbuf 3 "23 May 1999" "Straylight/Edgeware" "mLib utilities library" |
| 3 | .SH NAME |
| 4 | selbuf \- line-buffering input selector |
| 5 | .\" @selbuf_enable |
| 6 | .\" @selbuf_disable |
| 7 | .\" @selbuf_setsize |
| 8 | .\" @selbuf_init |
| 9 | .\" @selbuf_destroy |
| 10 | .SH SYNOPSIS |
| 11 | .nf |
| 12 | .B "#include <mLib/selbuf.h>" |
| 13 | |
| 14 | .BI "void selbuf_enable(selbuf *" b ); |
| 15 | .BI "void selbuf_disable(selbuf *" b ); |
| 16 | .BI "void selbuf_setsize(selbuf *" b ", size_t " sz ); |
| 17 | .BI "void selbuf_init(selbuf *" b ", sel_state *" s ", int " fd , |
| 18 | .BI " lbuf_func *" func ", void *" p ); |
| 19 | .BI "void selbuf_destroy(selbuf *" b ); |
| 20 | .fi |
| 21 | .SH DESCRIPTION |
| 22 | The |
| 23 | .B selbuf |
| 24 | subsystem is a selector which integrates with the |
| 25 | .BR sel (3) |
| 26 | system for I/O multiplexing. It reads entire text lines from a file |
| 27 | descriptor and passes them to a caller-defined function. It uses the |
| 28 | line buffer described in |
| 29 | .BR lbuf (3) |
| 30 | to do its work: you should read about it in order to understand exactly |
| 31 | what gets considered to be a line of text and what doesn't, and the |
| 32 | exact rules about what your line handling function should and shouldn't |
| 33 | do. |
| 34 | .PP |
| 35 | The data for a line selector is stored in an object of type |
| 36 | .BR selbuf . |
| 37 | This object must be allocated by the caller, and initialized using the |
| 38 | .B selbuf_init |
| 39 | function. This requires a fair few arguments: |
| 40 | .TP |
| 41 | .BI "selbuf *" b |
| 42 | Pointer to the |
| 43 | .B selbuf |
| 44 | object to initialize. |
| 45 | .TP |
| 46 | .BI "sel_state *" s |
| 47 | Pointer to a multiplexor object (type |
| 48 | .BR sel_state ) |
| 49 | to which this selector should be attached. See |
| 50 | .BR sel (3) |
| 51 | for more details about multiplexors, and how this whole system works. |
| 52 | .TP |
| 53 | .BI "int " fd |
| 54 | The file descriptor of the stream the selector should read from. |
| 55 | .TP |
| 56 | .BI "lbuf_func *" func |
| 57 | The |
| 58 | .I "line handler" |
| 59 | function. It is passed a pointer to each line read from the file (or |
| 60 | null to indicate end-of-file), the length of the line, and an arbitrary |
| 61 | pointer (the |
| 62 | .I p |
| 63 | argument to |
| 64 | .B selbuf_init |
| 65 | described below). For full details, see |
| 66 | .BR lbuf (3). |
| 67 | .TP |
| 68 | .BI "void *" p |
| 69 | A pointer argument passed to |
| 70 | .I func |
| 71 | for each line read from the file. Apart from this, the pointer is not |
| 72 | used at all. |
| 73 | .PP |
| 74 | The |
| 75 | .B selbuf |
| 76 | selector is immediately active. Subsequent calls to |
| 77 | .B sel_select |
| 78 | on the same multiplexor will cause any complete lines read from the file |
| 79 | to be passed to your handling function. This function can at any time |
| 80 | call |
| 81 | .B selbuf_disable |
| 82 | to stop itself from being called any more. The selector is then |
| 83 | disengaged from the I/O multiplexor and won't do anything until |
| 84 | .B selbuf_enable |
| 85 | is called. Note that |
| 86 | .B selbuf_enable |
| 87 | may well immediately start emitting complete lines of text which were |
| 88 | queued up from the last I/O operation: it doesn't necessarily wait for |
| 89 | the next |
| 90 | .B sel_select |
| 91 | call. |
| 92 | .PP |
| 93 | The line buffer has a finite amount of memory for reading strings. The |
| 94 | size of this buffer is set by calling |
| 95 | .B selbuf_setsize |
| 96 | with the requested size. The default buffer size is 256 bytes. |
| 97 | .PP |
| 98 | When it's finished with, a line buffer selector must be destroyed by |
| 99 | calling |
| 100 | .BR selbuf_destroy . |
| 101 | .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| 102 | .BR lbuf (3), |
| 103 | .BR sel (3), |
| 104 | .BR mLib (3). |
| 105 | .SH AUTHOR |
| 106 | Mark Wooding, <mdw@distorted.org.uk> |