README

   1 This is the CoreFoundation framework project for Darwin,
   2 sometimes also known as "CF-lite", because it does not
   3 contain every facility available from the CoreFoundation
   4 framework in Mac OS X.
   5
   6 The purpose of this README file is to share "what needs
   7 doing", "how to do things", and Q&A information about
   8 CF-lite, as this information is discovered.
   9
  10 --- What Apple is NOT interested in, with CF-lite:
  11 * Everybody's little convenience methods. Just because
  12   "everybody has to write their own", it does not
  13   follow immediately that it is a good idea to add it
  14   to the system libraries. It is not a goal of CF to
  15   be a "Swiss Army Knife"; that just increases the
  16   size of the binaries, and the documentation and
  17   maintenance burden. Functions to reverse a string
  18   or merge two arrays by taking alternate elements
  19   from the two arrays are not compelling.
  20
  21
  22 --- Major changes since March 2000:
  23 * Partial port to Linux
  24 * CF runtime refactored into CFRuntime.[hc], changed how
  25   types are registered/known to the runtime
  26 * CFMachPort and CFMessagePort now public API.
  27 * Most private symbols now are flagged with
  28   __private_extern__ so they aren't exported from
  29   the binary.
  30 * Partial port to FreeBSD.
  31 * CFBundle, CFPlugIn APIs added to Darwin.
  32
  33
  34 --- CF-lite to-do list:
  35 [Note: when it says "Apple has code" below, that usually
  36 means "Apple has some code it could provide to start an
  37 effort here", not "Apple has some code in the pipe, don't
  38 bother with this item". Anyone known to be doing work on
  39 any of these items will be listed here, including Apple.]
  40 * Some classes have a fair number of assertions, nearly all
  41   related to parameter checking. More assertions are needed
  42   nearly everywhere. The assertions that are there have been
  43   often found to be valuable -- you just get a message about
  44   some bad parameter and there's the bug.
  45 * More header doc is needed. CFArray.h and CFDictionary.h
  46   are models.
  47 * An exception model, similar to Cocoa Foundation's. Apple
  48   has some code for this already, and try/catch model like
  49   C++ is simple enough to support; finally blocks a la Java
  50   don't seem to be practical within the confines of ANSI C.
  51 * A CFFileDescriptor is needed which can act as a run loop
  52   source. Or maybe it should be CFPipeDescriptor. This is
  53   NOT something for general file handling -- just monitoring
  54   a file descriptor which is a pipe (for which there are
  55   notifications or other async activity).
  56
  57
  58 Contributors
  59 ------------
  60 March 2000: partial port to Linux by Pedro Ivo Tavares (ptavares@iname.com).
  61         This was mostly integrated by ckane@apple.com by CoreFoundation-5,
  62         but the style was changed, and the hand-crafted Makefile, which is
  63         new since this port, tries to take care of some of the things that
  64         are needed for Linux (and build a libCoreFoundation.a instead of a
  65         CoreFoundation.framework), but ckane does not have a Linux box and
  66         can't finish that and test building.
  67
  68 December 2000: port to FreeBSD by Sarwat Khan (sarwat@sarwat.net).
  69         Port to FreeBSD, except for RunLoop.subproj items.  Integrated by
  70         ckane@apple.com into CoreFoundation-8.  ckane also marginally
  71         improved the Linux port in that version.
  72
  73 March 2001: CoreFoundation-9, corresponding to CoreFoundation-197 in
  74         Mac OS X, synchronizes Darwin CF with Mac OS X's released CF.
  75
  76 May 2001: CoreFoundation-10, corresponding to CoreFoundation-206.5
  77         synchronizes Darwin CF with TOT CoreFoundation.
  78
  79 June 2001: Linux port maintenance by Robert Thompson <rothomp3@mac.com>.
  80
  81 July 2001: Integrated addition of headerdoc for CFBinaryHeap.h from
  82         Kevin Van Vechten <kevinvv@uclink4.berkeley.edu>.
  83
  84 Sept 2001: CoreFoundation-14, sync with Mac OS X 10.1
  85
  86 Oct 2001: More header doc (e.g., CFSet.h) and some CFTree implementation
  87         from Kevin Van Vechten <kevinvv@uclink4.berkeley.edu>.
  88
  89 Jan 2002: Windows(TM) port changes from Kevin Van Vechten <kevinvv@uclink4.berkeley.edu>.
  90
  91 Feb 2002: Some Windows(TM) port changes from Aleskey Dukhnyakov, Andrew Dzubandovsky,
  92         Roman Mukhin, and Sergey Zubarev; Orc Software<daa@orcsoftware.spb.ru>
  93
  94