construct/ircd/README.md

IRCd Library Definitions

This directory contains definitions and linkage for libircd

The purpose of libircd is to facilitate the execution of a server which handles requests from end-users. The library hosts a set of pluggable modules which may introduce the actual application features (or the "business logic") of the server.

The executable linking and invoking libircd may be referred to as the "embedding" or "user" or "executable" interchangably in this documentation.

Organization

Implied #include <ircd.h>

The ircd.h standard include group is pre-compiled and included first by default for every compilation unit in this directory. Developers do not have to worry about including project headers in a compilation unit, especially when creating and reorganizing either of them.

Note that because ircd.h is include above any manually included header, there is a theoretical possibility for a conflict. We make a serious effort to prevent ircd.h from introducing pollution outside of our very specific namespaces (see: Project Namespaces).

Dependency Isolation

Compilation units are primarily oriented around the inclusion of a specific dependency which is not involved in the ircd.h include group.

For example, the magic.cc unit was created to include <magic.h> internally and then provide definitions to our own interfaces in ircd.h. We don't include <magic.h> from ircd.h nor do we include it from any other compilation unit. This simply isolates libmagic as a dependency.