About the Source Code
Source code is linked to this manual through both the class reference
pages and the demos. When viewing the source, please keep in mind the
following points.
Formatting
All source files were written in a monospace font using
4-character tab stops. If your text editor or terminal
program sets the tabs every 8 spaces (a common default), then indentation
and (especially) comment alignment will be off. Moreover, the lines are
generally fewer than 80 characters long, but again, 8-character tab stops
will quickly cause this limit to be exceeded.
If you're familiar with Python, you
can use tabfix.py
to reformat files using spaces and 8-character tabs.
Netscape appears to use 8-character tabs, and (at least in our version)
this cannot be changed. So when viewing the source with this browser,
please excuse any messy formatting that may result.
Comments
The header files are, in general, generously commented. Once familiar
with the library, you should be able to discover all you need to use a
particular method from the class's header file. The source files,
however, have fewer comments, as they are not intended to be examined
except by the most intrepid programmers.
File Name Standards
All header files end with a .h, and source files
end in .cpp. On some systems, you may have to tell your
compiler that .cpp files should be compiled as C++ (though this was chosen
as the most widely recognized extension in an informal survey). The base
name (i.e., the part before the extension) has been scrunched to 8
characters for all files, and does not rely on case, to maintain
compatibility with primitive operating systems. This means that the
header file will not always match the actual class name (e.g., the Compartment class header file is Cmprtmnt.h).
Last Updated:
7/10/96
Joe Strout.