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        <h1>Overview</h1>




         <p>
            Dlib is a cross platform open source software library written in the C++ programming
            language. Its design is heavily influenced by ideas from design by contract and component-based 
            software engineering. This means it is, first and foremost, a collection of independent
            software components, each accompanied by extensive documentation and thorough debugging modes. 
         </p>

        <p>
         Generally speaking, there is no focus on any specific domain in the library. It contains a variety 
         of software objects for dealing with networking, threads (message passing, futures, etc.), 
         graphical interfaces, complex data structures, linear algebra, machine learning, XML and text 
         parsing, numerical optimization, Bayesian networks, and numerous other tasks.
        </p>

        <p>
         The most persistent theme in the library is the ubiquitous application of contract programming.  
         You can read about this on the <a href="howto_contribute.html#1">how to contribute</a> page
         for more information.  However, from the point of view of a user of this library it basically 
         means there exists complete and precise documentation for every function and class in the library   
         as well as aggressive debugging modes that can be enabled.  
        </p>

        <p>
         I always try to make sure everything is as portable as possible.  All platform specific code is
         confined inside the API wrappers.  Everything else is either layered on top of those wrappers
         or is written in pure ISO standard C++.  Currently the library is known to work on OS X, 
         MS Windows, Linux, Solaris, the BSDs, and HP-UX.  It should work on any POSIX platform but I 
         haven't had the opportunity to test it on any others (if you have access to other platforms and
         would like to help increase this list then let me know).
        </p>
        <p>
         The rest of this page explains everything you need to know to get started using the library.  It 
         explains where to find the documentation for each object/function and how to interpret
         what you find there.   For help compiling with dlib check out the <a href="compile.html">how to compile</a>
        page.  Or if you are having trouble finding where a particular object's documentation is located you may
        be able to find it by consulting the <a href="term_index.html">index</a>.</p>
        <p>
         The library is also covered by the very liberal Boost Software License so feel free to use it
         however you like.         
        </p>
        <p>
         Much of the organization and notation used in this library I learned from the 
         <a href="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~weide/sce/now/">Software Component Engineering</a>
         course sequence at OSU.  As such, this library is heavily influenced by the Design by Contract and 
         generic programming methodologies.
        </p>


        <!--   ****************************   NOTATION SECTION  ****************************    -->


        <h1>Notation</h1>
        <p>
        For the most part I try to document my code in a way that any C++ programmer would understand, 
        but for the sake of brevity I use some of the following uncommon notation.
        </p>

        <ul>
            <li/><b> kernel, extension, and abstract </b>
            <ul>
                Each component of the library has a specification which defines its core behavior and interface.  This 
                specification defines what is called the component's kernel.  Additionally, each component may have any number of 
                extensions.  An extension is essentially a specification for something that layers functionality on top of the 
                kernel of a component.  
                <br/>
                <br/>  In the naming of files I use the word abstract to indicate that a file
                contains a specification of a kernel component or extension rather than an actual implementation.
            </ul>




            <br/><li/><b>/*! comments like this !*/</b>
            <ul>
                This is just for "formal comments."  Generally these appear after a function prototype and contain
                the requires/ensures stuff or at the top of a class and tell you general things about the class. 
            </ul>




            <br/><li/> <b> requires/ensures/throws </b>
            <ul>
                These words appear in the formal comment following function prototypes and have the following meanings.
                <br/><br/><u>requires</u>:   This defines a list of requirements for calling the function.  These requirements
                MUST be met or a call to the function has undefined results.   (note that when the checking/debugging modes
                are enabled on an object then it will throw the dlib::fatal_error exception with fatal_error::type == EBROKEN_ASSERT when the requires clause is
                broken rather than causing "undefined results")

               <br/><br/><u>ensures</u>:    This defines what the function does.  It is a list of conditions that will be 
                true after the function finishes executing.  Note that if an exception is thrown or the function returns 
                indicating an error occurred then nothing in the ensures clause is guaranteed to be true.

               <br/><br/><u>throws</u>:     This defines what exceptions may be thrown by this function.  It generally
                tells you why the exception might be thrown.  It also tells you what the function does in this event: 
                Does it have no effect at all? Does it corrupt any objects?  etc.  

                <br/>
                <br/>
                Sometimes these blocks do not appear in the formal comment.  The meanings in these cases are as follows:
                <br/><u>missing requires</u>:   There are no requirements, you may put anything in the function arguments.
                <br/><u>missing ensures</u>:    This means that the effects of the function are unspecified.  This is often used
                for call backs where the client programmer implements the actual function. 
                <br/><u>missing throws</u>:     This doesn't mean anything.  A function without a throws block
                might throw exceptions or it might not.
                                    
                <br/>
                <br/>
                So in summary, the requires clause must always be satisfied, the ensures clause tells you what the 
                function does when it does <i>not</i> throw or return an error, and the throws clause tells you what happens when the function
                <i>does</i> throw.

            </ul>



            <br/><li/> <anchor>meaning_of_hash</anchor> <b> meaning of # symbol </b>
            <ul>
                I use this as a prefix on identifiers to make reference to the value of the identifier "after"
                some event has occurred.  
                <br/><br/>
                The most common place I use this notation is inside the formal comment following a function prototype.  
                If the # symbol appears in a requires/ensures/throws block then it means the value of
                the identifier after the function has finished, otherwise all references to an identifier 
                refer to its value before the function was called.
                <br/><br/>
                An example will make it clear.


                <pre><font color='#3333FF'>int</font> <b>funct</b><font face="Lucida Console">(</font>
<font color='#3333FF'>    int</font>&amp; something
<font face="Lucida Console">);</font>
<font color='#009900'>/*!
    requires
        - something &gt; 4     
    ensures
        - #some_other_function() == 9
        - #funct() == something 
        - #something == something + 1
!*/</font>
                </pre>

                This says that funct() requires that "something" be greater than 4, that funct() will increment "something" 
                by 1, and funct() returns the original value of something.  It also says that
                <i>after</i> the call to funct() ends a call to some_other_function() will return the value 9.

            </ul>
            
            <br/><li/> <anchor>CONVENTION</anchor> <b> CONVENTION </b>
            <ul>
                This is a section of the formal comment which appears at the top of classes which are 
                actual implementations (as opposed to specifications).  This section of the comment contains
                a list of invariants that tell you what the member variables are used for.  It also relates 
                the state of the member variables to the class interface.
                <br/>
                <br/>
                For example, you might see a line in this section that says "my_size == size()".  This just means
                that the member variable my_size always contains the value returned by the size() function.
            </ul>




            <br/><li/> <b> "initial value for its type" </b>
            <ul>
                I frequently say that after a function executes some variable or argument will have an 
                initial value for its type.  This makes sense for objects with a user defined constructor,
                but for anything else not so much.   Therefore the initial value of a type with no user defined
                constructor is undefined. 
            </ul>

        </ul>
        



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        <h1>Organization</h1>

        <p>
        The library can be thought of as a collection of components. 
        Each component consists of one "kernel" specification that defines exactly what the 
        component's interface looks like and what it does.   Additionally each component may 
        have extensions to its kernel. Each kernel and extension specification can have many implementations.

        </p>


        <ul>

            <li/> <b>File organization</b>
            <ul>
                Each component gets its own folder and one file in the root of the directory tree.
                <br/><br/>
                I will use the <a href="containers.html#queue">queue</a> object as a typical example and
                explain what each of its files contain.
                Below is the directory structure and all the files related to the queue component.  

                <br/><br/>
                <ul><li/> <b> file tree </b>
                    <ul>
                        <li/> dlib/
                        <ul>
                            <li/> queue.h
                            <li/> queue/
                            <ul>
                                <li/> queue_kernel_abstract.h  
                                <li/> queue_kernel_1.h
                                <li/> queue_kernel_2.h
                                <li/> queue_kernel_c.h
                                <li/> queue_sort_abstract.h
                                <li/> queue_sort_1.h
                            </ul>
                        </ul>
                    </ul>
   

                    <br/>

                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue.h.html">queue.h</a> 
                    <ul> This file does not contain any executable code.  All it does is define the typedefs such as 
                    kernel_1a, kernel_1a_c, etc. for the queue object.  See the <a href="#creating_objects">Creating Objects</a>
                    section to learn what these typedefs are for.
                    </ul>
                    
                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue/queue_kernel_abstract.h.html"> queue_kernel_abstract.h </a>
                    <ul> 
                    This file does not contain any code.  It even has preprocessor directives that prevent
                    any of its contents from being included.   
                    <br/>
                    <br/>
                    The purpose of this file is to define exactly what a queue object does and what its 
                    interface is.   
                    </ul>

                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue/queue_sort_abstract.h.html"> queue_sort_abstract.h </a>
                    <ul> 
                    This file also doesn't contain any code.  Its only purpose is to define the sort
                    extension to queue objects.  
                    </ul>

                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue/queue_kernel_1.h.html"> queue_kernel_1.h </a>
                    <ul> 
                    This file contains an implementation of the queue kernel specification found 
                    in queue_kernel_abstract.h 
                    </ul>

                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue/queue_kernel_2.h.html"> queue_kernel_2.h </a>
                    <ul> 
                    This file contains another implementation of the queue kernel specification found 
                    in queue_kernel_abstract.h 
                    </ul>

                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue/queue_sort_1.h.html"> queue_sort_1.h </a>
                    <ul> 
                    This file contains an implementation of the queue sort extension specification found 
                    in queue_sort_abstract.h 
                    </ul>

                    <li/> <a href="dlib/queue/queue_kernel_c.h.html"> queue_kernel_c.h </a>
                    <ul> 
                    This file contains a templated class which wraps any implementation of the queue kernel
                    specification.  It is used during debugging to check that the requires clauses are never
                    violated.
                    </ul>
                </ul>
            </ul>
        </ul>





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        <anchor>creating_objects</anchor>
        <h1>Creating Objects</h1>

        <p>
        To create many of the objects in this library you need to choose which kernel implementation you would like and if you 
        want the checking version or any extensions.   
        </p>
        <p>
        To make this easy there are header files which define typedefs of all this stuff.  For 
        example, to create a queue of ints using queue kernel implementation 1 you would type
        <tt>dlib::queue&lt;int&gt;::kernel_1a my_queue;</tt>.   Or to get the debugging/checking version you 
        would type <tt>dlib::queue&lt;int&gt;::kernel_1a_c my_queue;</tt>.
        </p>
        <p>
        There can be a lot of different typedefs for each component.  You can find a list of them
        in the section for the component in question.  For the queue component they can be found
        <a href="containers.html#queue">here</a>.
        </p>
        <p>
        None of the above applies to the API components (or any global functions or objects that don't have an "implementations"
        section in their documentation).  To use/create them you just need to include
        the appropriate headers.  For example, to create a mutex object from the <a href="api.html#threads">
        threads</a> component you would simply type <tt>dlib::mutex my_mutex;</tt>.  There is no 
        need to specify which kernel implementation.  The correct kernel implementation 
        is determined by which platform you compile under.  There are also no explicit checking versions
        of these components.  However, there are 
        <a href="metaprogramming.html#DLIB_ASSERT">DLIB_ASSERT</a> statements that perform checking and you can 
        enable them by #defining DEBUG or ENABLE_ASSERTS. 
        </p>



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        <h1>Assumptions</h1>
        There are some restrictions on the behavior of certain objects or functions.  
        Rather than replicating these restrictions all over the place in my documentation they
        are listed here.  

        <ul>

        <li/> <b> global swap() </b>
        <ul>
        It is assumed that this operator does not throw.  Undefined behavior results if it does.
        Note that std::swap() for all intrinsics and std::string does not throw.  
        </ul>



        <br/><li/> <b> operator&lt;() </b>
        <ul>
        It is assumed that this operator (or std::less or any similar functor supplied by you to the library) 
        does not throw.  Undefined behavior results if it does.  
        </ul>



        <br/><li/> <b> dlib::general_hash </b>
        <ul>
        It is assumed that general_hash does not throw.  Undefined behavior results if it does.
        This is actually noted in the general hash spec file but I'm listing it here also for good measure.

        </ul>



        </ul>





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         <anchor>thread_safety</anchor>
        <h1>Thread Safety</h1>
          
        <p>
        In the library there are three kinds of objects with regards to threading.  There are objects 
        that are completely thread safe.  Then there are objects that are not thread safe but can be 
        used if access to them is serialized using a mutex.  Lastly, there are objects which share
        some kind of global resource or are reference counted.  The last kind of object is
        extremely thread unfriendly and can only be used in a threaded program with great care.
        </p>

        <p>
        How do you know which components/objects are thread safe and which aren't?   The rule is that if
        the specification for the component doesn't mention threading or thread safety then 
        it is ok to use as long as you serialize access to it.   If the component might have
        some global resources or be reference counted then the specifications will tell you this. 
        And lastly if the component is thread safe then the specification will tell you this also.
        </p>





    
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