.-.-.-.-.-

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
 <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="LinuxDoc-Tools 0.9.66">
 <TITLE>The Linux Console Tools: The libraries</TITLE>
 <LINK HREF="lct-9.html" REL=next>
 <LINK HREF="lct-7.html" REL=previous>
 <LINK HREF="lct.html#toc8" REL=contents>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A HREF="lct-9.html">Next</A>
<A HREF="lct-7.html">Previous</A>
<A HREF="lct.html#toc8">Contents</A>
<HR>
<H2><A NAME="s8">8.</A> <A HREF="lct.html#toc8">The libraries</A></H2>

<P>There are several shared libraries installed by the Linux Console Tools.  They were
at first meant just to share code betwwen the various utilities
(<CODE>kbd</CODE> has lots of duplicated code), but they could be used as a
base to build new tools.</P>
<P>However, they are not yet ready for production use (hence the version
number 0.0.0), and are absolutely not complete nor coherent at the
time.</P>
<P>Here is a summary of what they are meant to become:</P>

<H2><A NAME="ss8.1">8.1</A> <A HREF="lct.html#toc8.1">libconsole, <CODE>&lt;lct/console.h&gt;</CODE> + <CODE>&lt;lct/ksyms.h&gt;</CODE></A>
</H2>

<P>is a meant to be a collection of:
<UL>
<LI> wrappers around the kernel-level functionnalities, which should
be as kernel-version-independant as reasonable; </LI>
<LI> higher-level interfaces to these functionnalities.</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<P>Maybe this goal overlaps with some part of libggi (see 
<A HREF="lct-9.html#sec-future">The future</A>), but I didn't investigate that for now.</P>

<H2><A NAME="ss8.2">8.2</A> <A HREF="lct.html#toc8.2">libcfont, <CODE>&lt;lct/font.h&gt;</CODE></A>
</H2>

<P>is meant to provide a high-level interface to console-font
file-handling. It also exports the lower-level functions used to
construct higher-level ones.</P>
<P>It only supports for now some low- to medium-level functions that ease
writing programs, but I hope to make it a lot more than that,
especially with the coming of the XPSF file-format (see
<CODE>doc/font-formats/xpsf.draft</CODE> for details).</P>
<P>As of release 1998.08.11, implementation of higher-level interface has
just started.</P>

<H2><A NAME="ss8.3">8.3</A> <A HREF="lct.html#toc8.3">libctutils, <CODE>&lt;lct/utils.h&gt;</CODE> + <CODE>&lt;lct/unicode.h&gt;</CODE></A>
</H2>

<P>is a collection of misc utility functions for use by the 2 other libs
and by the tools. I hope most this stuff will one day make its way to
an existing general purpose utility-library.  Any offers welcomed.</P>

<HR>
<A HREF="lct-9.html">Next</A>
<A HREF="lct-7.html">Previous</A>
<A HREF="lct.html#toc8">Contents</A>
</BODY>
</HTML>

/var/../usr/share/doc/console-tools/html/lct-8.html