.fp 5 CW

.de Af

.if \\$2 .nr ;G \\$1

.ie !\\$3 \{\

\\f\\$1\\$3\\f\\$2

.if !\\$4 .Af \\$2 \\$1 "\\$4" "\\$5" "\\$6" "\\$7" "\\$8"

\}

..

.de aF

.nr ;G \\n(.f

.Af "\\$1" "\\$2" "\\$3" "\\$4" "\\$5" "\\$6" "\\$7" "\\$8"

.ft \\n(;G

..

.de L

.aF 5 \\n(.f "\\$1" "\\$2" "\\$3" "\\$4" "\\$5" "\\$6"

..

.de LR

.aF 5 1 "\\$1" "\\$2" "\\$3" "\\$4" "\\$5" "\\$6"

..

.de RL

.aF 1 5 "\\$1" "\\$2" "\\$3" "\\$4" "\\$5" "\\$6"

..

.de EX \" start example

.ta 1i 2i 3i 4i 5i 6i

.PP

.RS

.PD 0

.ft 5

.nf

..

.de EE \" end example

.fi

.ft

.PD

.RE

.PP

..

.TH LIBAST 3

.UC 4

.SH NAME

libast \- introduction to the ast library

.SH DESCRIPTION

This section describes the

.I AST

(AT&T Software Technology) library functions of the

.B libast

library.

.B libast

serves three major purposes.

First, it presents (a subset of) POSIX/ANSI standard headers and interfaces on

non-compliant systems.

Second, it provides a portable base of routines that implement concepts

common to all UNIX system variants.

Finally, it is a forum for

modern implementations of features present (or lacking)

in the standard C libraries.

Features better provided by separate libraries are omitted from

.BR libast .

For example, most terminal driver interface issues are left for

special purpose libraries such as

.IR curses (3).

.PP

The

.B libast

related header files are installed in the directories

.LR include/ast .

Routines that do not advertize their own headers are prototyped in

.LR <ast.h> .

.L <ast.h>

is ANSI, K&R and C++ compatible and includes or defines the equivalent of

.LR <limits.h> ,

.LR <stddef.h> ,

.LR <stdlib.h> ,

.LR <sys/types.h> ,

.L <string.h>

and

.LR <unistd.h> .

Other libraries that depend on

.B libast

may also have headers installed in the

.L include/ast

directories.

.SH FILES

.nf

include/ast the \fBast\fP package header directory

lib/libast.a the \fBlibast\fP library

lib/libast-g.a the \fBlibast\fP library compiled for debugging

lib/libast-pg.a the \fBlibast\fP library compiled for profiling

lib/libast.so.4.0 the \fBlibast\fP shared library

.fi

.SH "SEE ALSO"

intro(3),

intro(2),

cc(1)

.SH CAVEATS

The library documentation is still under construction.

Yes, some of it has been in this state for 20 years.

Thank goodness our commands self-document.