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diff --git a/Build/source/libs/pplib/pplib-src/doc/ppnew.rst b/Build/source/libs/pplib/pplib-src/doc/ppnew.rst new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..4a0a3b42887 --- /dev/null +++ b/Build/source/libs/pplib/pplib-src/doc/ppnew.rst @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +
+1.x vs 2.x
+==========
+
+Allocation
+----------
+
+Allocation mechanisms has been revised. All objects are still allocated from a private storage (called heap),
+but now the heap serves properly aligned memory chunks. Implementation of the heap is (hopefully) platform
+independent, so all ``ARM_COMPLIANT`` checks has been removed. Some details work differently on 32/64-bit
+machines, this distinction seems inevitable. Allocation related code has been moved to ``util/utilmem*.c`` files.
+
+[There are actually 3 different allocators - **heap**, **stock**, and **pool** - each of which has 4 variants
+for 1, 2, 4 and 8 bytes alignment. So far ``pplib`` uses only the **heap**, but I want to have this part
+in a single place for a while. More notes about allocators in ``utilmemallc.h``.]
+
+``pplib`` uses two heaps:
+
+* bytes heap - providing 2-bytes aligned memory chunks for byte data
+* structures heap - providing 8-bytes aligned chunks for all structures
+
+2-bytes alignment of byte data is caused by implementation details / limits, ``pplib`` doesn't make a use of it
+(could be unaligned as well). All the structures are stored in 8-bytes aligned chunks on both 32 and 64-bit machines
+(in some structures we use ``double`` and ``int64_t``, which generally needs 8-bytes).
+
+Strings And Names
+-----------------
+
+So far, both ``ppname`` and ``ppstring`` were aliases to ``char *`` with an extra structure hidden just below
+the data address. The idea was to make a string or name usable whenever chars array can, at the cost of some
+pointers trickery. Both names and strings keep an information about pdf-encoded data, as well as plain bytes data.
+I implemented this feature once ``pplib 1.0`` was almost done, and to avoid a revolution, I made that with yet
+another trick. This all was dirty and caused lots of alignment issues.
+
+Now ``ppstring`` and ``ppname`` are **structures**, keeping data and size members, pretty much like ``pparray``::
+
+ struct ppname {
+ ppbyte *data;
+ size_t size;
+ ppname *alterego;
+ int flags;
+ };
+
+ struct ppstring {
+ ppbyte *data;
+ size_t size;
+ ppstring *alterego;
+ int flags;
+ };
+
+Data member is a pointer to (2-bytes aligned) bytes array -- ``ppbyte *``. ``ppbyte`` is an alias to ``char``.
+``pplib`` makes no assumptions about ``ppbyte`` signedness. [I'd prefer to have ``uint8_t``, but better
+keep that in sync with ``ppdict_get_*`` suite, which accepts ``char *``. Using ``"string literals"``
+with ``ppdict_get`` function is the most common case, I guess.]
+
+``ppname_size()`` and ``ppstring_size() `` now have
+trivial ``ppname_data()`` and ``ppstring_data()`` counterparts::
+
+ #define ppname_size(name) ((name)->size)
+ #define ppname_data(name) ((name)->data)
+
+ #define ppstring_size(string) ((string)->size)
+ #define ppstring_data(string) ((string)->data)
+
+Switching between encoded / decoded variants is made via explicit ``alterego`` member. If encoded and decoded forms
+are identical, then ``self->alfterego == self`` (never NULL). Helper functions for that::
+
+ PPAPI ppname * ppname_decoded (ppname *name);
+ PPAPI ppname * ppname_encoded (ppname *name);
+
+ PPAPI ppbyte * ppname_decoded_data (ppname *name);
+ PPAPI ppbyte * ppname_encoded_data (ppname *name);
+
+ PPAPI ppstring * ppstring_decoded (ppstring *string);
+ PPAPI ppstring * ppstring_encoded (ppstring *string);
+
+ PPAPI ppbyte * ppstring_decoded_data (ppstring *string);
+ PPAPI ppbyte * ppstring_encoded_data (ppstring *string);
+
+Since ``ppname`` and ``ppstring`` are now structures, all API functions returning name/string or taking name/string
+as an argument, now take **a pointer to name/string**. Watch out for ``ppdict_get_*`` functions suite. They still accept
+``const char *`` key as an argument, but ``ppname`` type can no longer be used there::
+
+ ppname key;
+ ppdict_get_something(dict, key); // wrong
+ ppdict_get_something(dict, key.data); // ok
+
+ ppname *pkey;
+ ppdict_get_something(dict, (const char *)pkey); // wrong
+ ppdict_get_something(dict, pkey->data); // ok
+
+Consequently, functions / macros that used pointer to ``ppname`` (``ppdict_first()`` / ``ppdict_next()``),
+now needs ``ppname **pname``.
+
+Cleanups
+--------
+
+Some of unused utils were removed. There is still some code in utils part that is not used by the library,
+but I need this tollbox in many other places and don't want to maintain two versions.
+
+Some unification in integer types; ``size_t`` seems to be the best choice for and integer representing machine
+word (``unsigned long`` is not long enough on windows), less utils dependencies, less compiler warnings.
+
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