Re: [Yaml-core] Thoughts on yaml.h

[Clark C . E. <cc...@cl...>]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 05:35:29PM -0400, Clark C . Evans wrote:
| 1. Should strings be used for values as well
|    as keys?

I think the answer to this one is yes.  Both the
push and pull methods will have a way to ask/get
values as a peice of an array and as a whole 
string.  With the fixed "C++" style structure, 
two default methods can be included as part 
of the standard library which will change
one style into the other; making the burden on
implementers/users of the interfaces managable.

| 2. Is the string treated as an object, i.e.,
|    does it have a interface based layout
|    (in C++ style for clarity)
...
|    Or does it use global functions:

I think the answer to this one is to use
global functions; this is the most compatible
with OLE BSTR and also very consistent with
the "char *" pointer method.  

Thus, a yaml_string will be implemented as
a pointer to yaml_char_t, and the size of 
the string can be obtained by backing up 
sizeof(long) to read the string length.
Access will be done through the following
methods...

|       typedef char * yaml_char_t; /* or unsigned short */
|       typedef void * yaml_string_t;
|       yaml_string_t yaml_clone(yaml_string_t)
|       void          yaml_release(yaml_string_t)
|       yaml_char_t * yaml_buff(yaml_string_t)
|       long          yaml_length(yaml_string_t)

The yaml_length and yaml_buff will then be
simple #defines, except on the Windows platform,
where yaml_string_t will be defined as a BSTR
and yaml_buff and yaml_length will be defined
as the corresponding Sys function...

Also, some way to create a yaml_string based
on multiple array fragments should also be
provided... probably an "create" and "append"
functions.

| 3. Should the string library include 
|    methods for string creation and, possibly,
|    fast comparison?  The default implementaiton
|    could, for instance, do string interning...

With a single yaml_string_t mechanism, it will
be possible for the implementation (perhaps with
a compile time option) to specify if string 
interning will be done.

Best,

Clark